English expertise for BFF Academy
With the planned football academy activities underway since early April, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) took a further step to hone the budding players’ skills by appointing high-profile coaching staff for the duration of one year.
Football’s local governing body picked up some 61 players, aged under 15 through 18, through trials earlier this year. The players were then sent for a long-term training camp at the Fortis Sports Ground, located at Beraid in Badda, to prepare them for the upcoming SAFF U-15 and U-18 Championships as well as the AFC U-16 and U-19 Championships Qualifiers.
The newly appointed coaches were introduced at the BFF house yesterday with BFF technical and strategic director Paul Smalley briefing the media on their responsibilities.
Robert Martin Ryles, Andrew Peter Turner, Robert Andrew Mimms and Stuart Paul Watkiss all are UEFA- A licensed coaches and have vast experience of working with different professional clubs as well national associations.
“The gentlemen here have top qualifications in both senior performance football as well as development football,” Smalley said.
“The question may raise as to why we looked into all English expertise. It is not for their citizenship, rather they superseded other candidates who applied for the position. Bobby [Mimms] will be responsible for the goalkeepers on all national teams, Stuart [who is the assistant coach of the senior national team] will lead the U-19 team while Andrew Turner and Robert Ryles will look after the U-14 to U-16 groups.
“Robert’s has medical expertise and also physical conditioning expertise,” explained Smalley, who acknowledged Fortis Group and K-Spots for building up the BFF academy, which has been functioning well for the last six weeks.
“For the academy, we brought some foreign expertise to compliment the local experts, who have also been working at the academy. It is a very comprehensive programme for age-group players of the U-15, U-18 levels for the SAFF Championship and U-16 and U-19 levels for the AFC Championship Qualifiers,” he continued.
“Since I played professional football and have worked with a number of professional academies in England, I think my experience will help me to work here at this federation as well as Forties Academy. I will certainly give my best and I will certainly give as much enthusiasm and effort as I can to help Bangladesh football as well as the national team,” said Turner, who once played for English Premier League sides Tottenham Hotspur FC Portsmouth FC.
“It is a great honour to come here. This is not something that I take lightly. I blasted the opportunity in the English Premier League with leading international players and worked at academies with U-15 players to senior level. So I was given the opportunity in England and also travelled the World over with English international teams. Hopefully I will be able to bring the education, experiences and development boost that will make technically good, professionally good attitude players here,” explained Ryles, who will be head coach of U-15 and U-16 teams.