UEFA made it clear that the continuous learning development contact hours is minimum fifteen hours for all coaches who wish to keep their Uefa license within a three year period. What does this mean? It means every three years Uefa licence coaches will have to sit coaching courses listed as CPD contact hour courses in order to maintain their license. And if you don't sit those hours what does it mean? Well according to a UEFA advisor your Uefa license will no longer be valid. The answer seemed unclear so Keepitonthedeck.com decided to fire some emails across to UEFA for more clarity on a Uefa license that is not valid.
After a number of emails finally a response was forthcoming. Uefa confirmed that people who fail to complete a minimum of fifteen hours CPD will have their UEFA license listed as non valid by the football association who issued the license. Basically unless you pay to sit 15 hours worth of CPD contact hours your UEFA license becomes invalid. There is questions to be asked about that logic surely. The thoughts of one UEFA B license holder in the Rep of Ireland made some interesting points.
Keepitonthedeck.com asked numerous coaches for their opinion on CPD hours being mandatory and the following views were if nothing else the most controversial. The coach in question wrote "Listen it's just another way to guarantee income for these associations. Are you seriously going to tell me someone who sits fifteen hours of CPD over the space of three years when he might do three hours coaching a week will progress more than a coach who does twenty hours coaching a week yet doesn't sit any CPD coaching contact hours? I mean come on like lets get real. Losing a license because you fail to pay for and sit a chosen random course, a license that cost a fortune to receive in the first place. This rule is taking the absolute p**s in my opinion. Coaches who receive their UEFA B or A are clearly dedicated people and you can be sure the hours of learning from the game or the many hours of coaching in real coaching environments progress these people far more than any random fifteen hour course ever will. How about we make it mandatory for coaches with a UEFA B or A license to coach 30 hours minimum within a grassroots club over the course of three years to maintain their B or A license?? from a football sense that would make sense, but in terms of making financial sense of course these associations will love the idea of forcing coaches to sit courses to maintain their license. I invite any of these associations to explain to me how the f**k not sitting a random fifteen hour coaching course warrants having a UEFA license removed?"
It's clear from the language and anger in the comments above that this CPD hour mandatory rule is not exactly the most popular one, but the truth is it has been in place for years now and with little objection. Keepitonthedeck.com however does agree from a logic standpoint that removing someone's UEFA license from being valid due to a coach not sitting fifteen hours of CPD contact is farcical. No association, no coach, nobody will ever teach a coach more about the game than the game itself will teach so the ignorance to assume these CPD contact hours courses are gospel must sit courses for all coaches on a certain run of the coaching ladder is a joke. Who is to say within a three year period a coach won't have progressed during courses listed outside of CPD contact hours, who is to say their coaching experienced won't have brought them on as coaches, who is to say people and other coaches they meet on their coaching journey won't have helped them evolve as coaches?.......who is anyone to say unless you sit fifteen hours of official CPD contact hours over three years that you are not a valid UEFA standard coach.