First coaches awarded with EHF PRO license in Belgrade

The first 20 handball coaches were awarded with an EHF Pro License on the closing day of the 2012 EHF „RINCK“ Convention Open Master Coach and Licensing course in Belgrade on Sunday.

The course consisted of three modules with the start at the Men's EHF EURO last January, the second part in Hard, Austria, in July during the Men's 18 European Championship and the last part taking place in Belgrade on the fringes of the Women's EHF EURO 2012.

The new EHF PRO License, which can be awarded only to current Master Coaches or Master Coach applicants, will be valid only for two years (2013/14) and its extension will be subject to the attendance of a further EHF (or EHF recognised) training course in international handball within a trasnition period of another two years.

The EHF RINCK Convention Open Master, founded in 2000, enables mutual recognition of standards and certificates in the field of coaches' education in handball in Europe by preserving and safeguarding the regional and national characteristics of coaches' education, in order to facilitate the direct admission to work as a handball coach, in each signatory Member Federation.

This convention was signed by six countries in April 2000 in Tel Aviv and since then the number of signatory countries increased to 28.

The awarding of the new licenses was carried out by EHF President Jean Brihault.

"The future of our game depends on you and the quality of your work," Brihault stressed. 

"You are essential and vital for the European - and there is no reason to be modest – for the world handball as well. 

"Nothing can be as fruitful as a contact, sometimes even a confrontation between the countries and cultures," he continued.

"This is history in the making. Ten years after the founding of the RINCK Convention we felt that we need a revised version and it was absolutely neccessary for coaches to have a license system," said the member of the Methods Commission of the EHF and one of the lecturers, Wolfgang Pollany.

"Now, we are sending you out to Europe and the whole handball world as our ambassadors," he added.

"I can only welcome this initiative and I see it as an important step in my coaching career. 

"With this license I can satisfy my ambition to become a coach of a team in Germany, Spain, France or in a different country after my time in Partizan will be over. 

"I am convinced there is always something new to learn," said Aleksandar Brković, the youngest coach of the VELUX EHF Champions League, who received the license just one day before his 31st birthday.

One of the most experienced participants of the course, Helmut König from Austria, hoped that the course had also some extra value.

"I have the feeling we all are now parts of one team. For sure, if we meet somewhere in the match we will become opponents for sixty minutes, but after the match we will be friends again who can go out for one beer," he said.

The first edition of the course included several top names from the European benches, like national coaches of Austria, Slovenia or Montenegro.