PSSI to hire foreign technical director
PSSI to hire foreign technical director
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Soccer Association will hire a foreign technical director to improve the technical skills of national coaches, the association's secretary-general Nugraha Besoes told reporters yesterday.
"We have three choices for the position but the association will announce who will fill it at our presentation meeting," Nugraha said.
The three choices are Romano Matte of Italy, who has been coaching the national team, Burkhard Pape of Germany and duo Dutch coaches Bert van Lingen and Arno Pijpers.
"They all have good reputations as coaches in their respective countries," he said.
Pape coached the Indonesian junior team from 1983 to 1989. Since 1968, he has been coaching many Asian and African junior teams such as in Egypt, Uganda, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The Dutch national soccer association has offered "a package" of coaches comprising van Lingen and Pijpers.
"The association itself offered me the duo," Nugraha, who visited the Netherlands and Germany last month, said.
The Dutch duo also has an excellent reputation. Van Lingen was the assistant of Rinus Mitchel and Dick Advocaat, Holland's renowned coaches. Pijpers was a former coach of PSV Eindhoven junior and Feyenoord junior, two of the leading teams in the Netherlands.
According to Nugraha, if Indonesia hires the duo, van Lingen will probably be accompanied by his wife, Vera Pauw, who is the captain of the Dutch Women's soccer team.
"I think she can help us revive our women's teams, which have been inactive for four years," he said.
Nugraha, however, did not disclose how much the contract is worth.
"It's confidential," he said.
Nugraha said that the association's presentation to be attended by the association's officials, soccer buffs and journalists, will name the person to be appointed director. The position carries a four-year contract.
"We have to be realistic with our own financial capability," he said.
"If we want a reputable coach we can't get him at a cheap price," he added.
Nugraha said that within two years the technical director should have groomed coaches throughout the country.
He added that it is a long-term program and promised that the association would not dismiss the technical director before the end of the contract.
Nugraha expressed his hopes that the technical director would be able to help the association establish a qualified junior team.
He said that junior players have to be groomed in clubs before joining the national first division or the national team.
"It's a pity that our clubs don't have their own junior teams," he said. (05)