The second edition of the sports directors course is behind us

Photo: PZPN Trainers’ School

The last session of the second edition of the sports directors course took place on September 9-12, ending with a final exam. After passing it, 24 participants received diplomas.

At the moment, the participants of the second edition of the sports directors course have been working for exactly one year. – Ultimately, in a few years, completing this course is to become a requirement for performing this function in clubs of the two highest leagues. The course will be led mainly by foreign speakers – said Paweł Grycmann, director of the PZPN Trainers’ School on September 7, 2023, on the day of the inauguration of the classes.

For several years, the Polish Football Association, in addition to standard coaching courses, has also been running courses for other specialists working in the world of football on a daily basis. At the Coaches’ School, competences are expanded by motor preparation coaches, analysts, scouts, as well as people from offices: academy directors and sports directors. All this in order to strengthen club staff, including those at the management level.

The second edition of the course, similarly to the first, was attended mainly by people with more or less experience in working as managers. In order to make expanding knowledge possible in such a case, the organizers – headed by coordinator Łukasz Piworowicz – must take care to select professional speakers. During the last year, one of the special guests of the course was the sports director of Sevilla FC, Victor Orta Martinez, who gave a total of three lectures: on the club’s vision, the use of big data, and a question and answer session.

The participants also trained abroad. In March, they spent a few days in the Netherlands, where they saw from the inside how directors of clubs such as Feyenoord Rotterdam and PSV Eindhoven function. “We met with specialists who can boast great successes. Both clubs are at the top of the Eredivisie table, they sell players for big money, so you can see that they do their job very effectively. There are good role models to draw from,” admitted Łukasz Piworowicz at the time.

During the second edition of the course, a lot of attention was also paid to the cooperation between the director and the coach. In April, the coach of the Polish national team, Michał Probierz, met with the participants in Białystok. – The exchange of experiences is very important for all the course participants. As for the speakers, they are not only people associated with Polish football. The course participants also participate in foreign sessions, where they can develop even more and see what it looks like outside the borders of our country. It is known that it is impossible to translate this one to one, because it is necessary to remember that financial resources are crucial in the work of a sports director. However, building structures and managing the club is also very important – said the helmsman of the white and reds.

The subject of cooperation with the coaching staff did not end there. During the last, just finished session, future (and in some cases already present) sports directors held joint classes with participants of the next edition of the UEFA Pro course, which began in August. Then the course participants took exams, which they passed in full.

List of participants:

Jacob Chodorowski
Krzysztof Filipek
Dawid Frąckowiak (Warta Poznań)
Robert Góralczyk
Rafal Grodzicki
Sebastian Gryglaszewski
Piotr Kasprzak
Kamil Rooster
Piotr Kosiorowski (Polonia Warsaw)
Rafal Kosznik
Adam Lechowski
Grzegorz Majewski
Matthew Mazur
Lukasz Mika
Sebastian Mila
Jakub Mlynarski
Radoslaw Mozyrko
Adrian Peterson
Artur Płatek
Bartholomew Sielewski
Tomasz Stefankiewicz
Marcin Stokłosa
Piotr Stokowiec
Paul Szyler
Lukasz Tralka