For­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Arnold Dwari­ka is sup­port­ing the ef­forts to strength­en the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal foot­ball with heav­ier em­pha­sis on youth de­vel­op­ment. Dwari­ka, wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the most ex­cit­ing play­mak­ers and at­tack­ing play­ers to wear a na­tion­al shirt since the emer­gence of Rus­sell Lat­apy in the 1980s, com­plet­ed the TTFF/Dutch "C" Li­cense coach­ing course last week at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um along with 22 oth­er coach­es. He men­tioned that the knowl­edge gained at the course will as­sist him in de­vel­op­ing younger play­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the youth pro­gram be­ing im­ple­ment­ed at Di­recTV North East Stars of which he is a mem­ber of the coach­ing staff.

"It's good to see the ap­point­ment of the new coach (Ot­to Pfis­ter) but the de­vel­op­ment of the foot­ball will not come overnight. It's a phase that we need to be pa­tient with. We seem to have for­got­ten the de­vel­op­ment of the youths in the past and I think this is good step now with these kind of cours­es which will help im­prove the lev­el of their game," Dwari­ka said. "There have been prob­lems with young play­ers com­ing in­to the na­tion­al set up and coach­es have had prob­lems in the past be­cause they have to still teach the ba­sics to the young­ster. Hope­ful­ly now na­tion­al coach­es will not have so much of those prob­lems. It should be al­most au­to­mat­ic that when play­ers come from their clubs they would have been trained the ba­sics and it would now make it eas­i­er for the coach at the na­tion­al lev­el."

"There's a process in every­thing and this course is about de­vel­op­ing younger coach­es like my­self who can now de­vel­op the youth play­ers us­ing a bet­ter sys­tem based on the knowl­edge we are gain­ing in these cours­es. I think it's the right ap­proach. We will have our ups and downs but I think this is the rea­son we are tak­ing these cours­es so we can im­prove and help the over­all de­vel­op­ment of foot­ball in the coun­try." The TTFF is al­so re­vamp­ing its Na­tion­al Youth League with com­pe­ti­tions in the Un­der-13, U-15 and U-17 age groups and a sum of $650,000 will be spent on the pro­gram which will in­clude par­tic­i­pat­ing clubs which pos­sess with­in its staff some of the coach­es who have grad­u­at­ed from the "C" li­cense cours­es thus far.

'c' li­cense course

Coach­es from lat­est 'C' Li­cense Course

Adri­an Goodridge (Fire Ser­vice Youth Club), An­tho­ny Rougi­er (South End), Arnold Dwari­ka (North East Stars), Dwayne Davis (Bish­ops East), Everett Williams (St Ann's Rangers), Gideon To­by, Jo­hann Con­taste (FC San­ta Rosa), John Hen­ry (Joe Pub­lic), Ken­neth Phillip (West Side Su­per Stars), Kevin Jef­frey (North East Stars) Ky­ronne Granger (St Ann's Rangers), Marc Bor­de (St Fran­cois Na­tion­al) Mario Mata­moro (Leeds) Na­tal­ie Noel (Ea­gles Utd), Owen Khan (Joe Pub­lic), Ran­dolph Jerome (North East Stars), Rawle St Louis, Roger Joseph, Roland Clarke (Joe Pub­lic), Steve Sal­im (Leeds), Mar­tin George (SKHY), Vic­tor Solomon (North East Stars), Bar­ry Vil­laroel (WASA).