Ever fancied yourself as a football manager or coach but never taken your passions beyond a successful spell with Dagenham & Redbridge on the computer game series Football Manager?
Gap Africa offers you the opportunity to take a great leap into the world of sports coaching. Even if you haven’t ever visited your local playing fields on a Saturday morning to help out with the under 6’s 7-a-side, this could be the incentive you need to take up a long-held ambition. Dive straight into the deep end by coaching abroad with this volunteer programme based in South Africa.
It might sound like a scary prospect, coaching abroad, trying to control hyperactive kids in searing temperatures, but once you’re out there you’ll receive fantastic support from the Gap Africa team, stay in accommodation with other volunteers (you will be fed too!) and you’ll meet a bunch of children from local townships in Port Elizabeth, all bursting with enthusiasm for football. You’ll discover an abundance of naturally talented young players that just need a bit of guidance in their technical play, understanding of the game and the fundamentals of teamwork. You could be training the future stars of the South African national football team!
You will organise training schedules and matches with the help of our team, devise mini tournaments and soon enough you’ll be confident enough to take on whole swathes of young footballers by yourself.
Football coaching abroad will enrich you immeasurably as a person as well as look good on your CV. Some of the best managers in the world honed their talents by travelling to far flung corners to teach football. This leap will inspire you to take on more daring adventures. Regardless of experience, so long as you have a decent background in football – be it through playing or watching the sport – the children you work with will look up to you and soak up every bit of football-related wisdom you possess. And you will undoubtedly learn a thing or two from them as well!
The main thing about this project is offering under-privileged kids a chance to play the sports they love even if you’d never considered coaching – let alone coaching abroad – before. If you can get the funds together it’s an experience you’re unlikely to ever forget. Imagine what it would be like to be watching the 2022 World Cup and spot kids you taught to pass and move lining up for South Africa?
And if football isn’t your ‘thing’, there are also programmes in rugby, netball and hockey available.