After exactly one year working in Indonesia I am back in the Netherlands. It has been an interesting, frustrating and learning experience. When I first came there was a lot of energy in the Football Association (PSSI) office. A lot of changes were made over the previous two years to develop football in this football crazy country.
The association brought in two foreigners, Mr. Sivaji and myself, to help develop the sport in Indonesia. Mr. Sivaji is an experienced coach and instructor who is a member of the AFC technical committee.

We concentrated on one of the most important pillars for improvement of football: coach education.  In a short period of time we set up a great program for coaches to get their AFC license in Indonesia. There had been a vacuum of 4 years in which the courses were not given or not recognized bij AFC. The new program provided 40 A-, B- and C-AFC courses and 36 National D-courses in 2015. The head coaches participated in the first courses. Many of them had previously followed the national courses which were not recognized bij AFC. Continue reading →