By Our Correspondent

The first-ever CAF Safety and Security Train the Trainers Workshop organized by the Confederation of African Football teed off in Nigeria on Thursday, with participants from host Nigeria, Liberia, Algeria, South Africa, Eswatini, Uganda, Namibia, Seychelles, Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal, Niger Republic, Ghana and Kenya.

A total of 20 trainers will undergo the 3-day intensive training with the theme ‘Promoting Stadium Safety and Security’, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Nigeria’s federal capital, Abuja.

CAF’s Head of Safety and Security, Dr Christian Emeruwa, said at the opening: “Our target is to see that these 20 trainers are able to support CAF intervention programme with 12 selected Member Associations across Africa, to train 30 Club security officers in each MA and at the end we shall be able to train 360 Club security officers in the 12 MAs. When we add this number to the already –trained 309 NSSO, CSSO and Premier League Body security managers, CAF would have trained a total of 669 persons from December 2019 till date, from the mere nine that were trained in the whole of Africa in 2019 prior to the set-up of the Safety and Security Department.”

The goal of the Confederation of African Football is to empower Africans to develop their own capacity to train themselves with the support of FIFA Safety, Security and Access Control Department and all CAF’s partners like SGSA and ICSS.

At Thursday’s opening, General Secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation, Dr Mohammed Sanusi welcomed participants and implored them to feel at home in Nigeria, while applauding the concept behind the workshop and praising CAF for choosing Nigeria as the host of the first of such an important programme. He was there with a Member of the NFF Executive Committee, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gusau, who is also a CAF Security Officer.

Dr Emeruwa set the ball rolling by lifting the lid on ‘Concept of CAF Safety and Security Train the Trainers Programme’, before Katharina Steinberg talked about ‘Introduction to the list of modules and summary of trainers’ materials’ and ‘Presentation Skills for Trainers’.

On Friday and Saturday, the session will break into groups for interactive feedback sessions.

On the final day, Katharina Steinberg will lead the feedback session while Dr Emeruwa will dwell on ‘Operational Logistics for Train the Trainers (CAF Provision & Host MA Provision)’ and ‘Pilot Training Intervention Programme’.

Certificates will be presented at Sunday’s closing ceremony by officials of world governing –body FIFA, CAF and the Nigeria Football Federation.