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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO sides Highlanders, Chicken Inn and How Mine could be forced to make major technical changes in the coming season unless their coaches attain a Caf A licence badge.Zifa have ordered that all Premier Soccer League coaches must be holders of a Caf A licence.

Assistant coaches must have a minimum of Level Four certificates.

Caf are understood to peg the highest coaching qualification required in any league to that of the top course held. In Zimbabwe the continental body has held two Caf A courses.

It is understood that courses done outside the continent do not necessarily make one skip the requirements though wide held opinion is Latin America and Central and East Europe qualifications are beyond questioning given the duration that it takes one to attain some of them. In  Zimbabwe, one can walk out with a Caf qualification  within a month yet new Highlanders’ coach Bongani Mafu took nine months to get his Uefa B qualification.

Mafu has a Uefa B licence and one equivalent to an instructor’s badge he did in Germany.

Chicken Inn’s Joey Antipas is believed to have apart from some local qualifications a Dutch qualification.

How Mine’s Luke Masomere is a Caf B licence holder and he and Antipas are waiting for the Caf A results which they sat for this month.

If they both fail, they will not be allowed to sit on the bench when the 2015 season gets underway sometime next March.

“As for Mafu, he has to attend a Caf A course, it will just be mere formality for him but if the League was to start today, he would not be allowed to sit on the bench for Highlanders, we will not accredit him,” said the Zifa technical director Takaendesa Jongwe who until his appointment was not an instructor.

Jongwe said if a country holds a coaching clinic for its coaches, that highest course becomes the benchmark and no coach holding lower qualifications can coach at the highest level.

Bosso’s candidates for the assistant coach’s post Mandla Mpofu holds a Caf A, Bekithemba Ndlovu (Caf B) and Dazzy Kapenya (Level Three).

It could not be confirmed yesterday whether in countries such as South Africa that also applies for foreign coaches with higher qualifications. The first Caf A course was done in August and the other this month.

Questions have been raised over the selection of coaches for these courses.

Some coaches are demanding to know previous course results of some of the instructors now running the show amid reports that some were known to have failed Caf C after bunking lessons.

However, Chicken Inn have rubbished the directive and said some coaches are only good in theory but when it came to practical, they found life very difficult.

“As far as we are concerned, our coach is qualified to coach anywhere in the world, we can’t lose sleep over these requirements,” said Chicken Inn secretary-general Tawengwa Hara.

Another PSL club said teams should employ personnel of their choice as it was not certificates that brought results but the character of the coach, luck and management as well.

They questioned why the country’s most qualified coaches were failing to get jobs and post good results.

“Rahman Gumbo and Norman Mapeza won things without those courses. Training is meant to improve standards but your best coaches are in the streets,” said a club official.