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Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
IN a rare development for sport administration in the country, a high-level international sports management course has been lined up for Harare at the end of this month which could change the manner in which local associations and institutions are administered. After a series of successfully staged local sports management courses held every summer and winter, the Sports Leaders Institute of Zimbabwe have gone international and partnered with the West Virginia University of the United States to hold the international sports management course scheduled for the ZESA Training Centre from October 25-27.

West Virginia University, who are highly rated in the United States, are dispatching one of their top lecturers in sport management, Floyd Jones, for the course. The main topic is, “The globalisation of sport management as an academic discipline, a science based approach to managing sport in Zimbabwe’’. SLIZ director Russell Mhiribidi, who is facilitating the event, revealed yesterday his organisation had invited the Sports and Recreation Commission, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, the various national associations, schools, tertiary institutions and Premiership clubs to “enrol for the Level 1 Continuing Education Certificate Course’’.

Mhiribidi said the participants would get hands-on education on various sub-topics which include: How to incorporate the scientific perspective and models most relevant to managing sport and physical activity organisations The five major functions of sport management

Issues of inclusion, ethics and morality Relevance of management theory and its contribution to the professional’s skill sets and designing of an entrepreneurial model for a growing sport business (business plan). Mhiribidi said the course, which Jones would conduct, was also a follow-up level to the introduction to sport mamebnement courses they had held countrywide which had seen more than 600 adminsitraors attending at various intervals. The SLIZ director, however, said coaches and other experts such as sports club executives, sports directors and other sports leaders were eligible to attend as part of the continuing education in all facets of life which is in line with the global trends.

“It is often said that you never stop to learn…the global trend now is to continue learning even if you attained a degree or coaching certificate in Germany or Brazil some years ago, you cannot sit on your laurels and say it is enough to carry you through in life.

“So this is a very practical and hands on programme and people will discover abilities that they previously thought they did not have.

“Dr Jones has been to Kenya and Uganda on similar programmes and that is where we met him and invited him to Zimbabwe. We are also happy that the university has also agreed to train some 10 SLIZ officers in the United States for the train the trainer modules so that when they come back home they can train more administrators locally.

“As a nation we seem to be more worried about doing well in sport and not doing well sport well and we want just want to win at all costs hence we end up using unethical practices and that manifests in such incidences like the abandoned matches that we have been witnessing in football for example.

“As SLIZ we will challenge the participants to see if the model they will be taught waxworks for Zimbabwe and I believe that after the course the people’s way of thinking in this country will be more refined.’’ Mhiribidi said the course would also dovetail with the new national sports policy being rolled out by government with the SLIZ director underlining the significance of sport as a potentially huge contributor to the country’s Gross DOmestc Product.

“Sport is the biggest paying profession and if done well wee we will it will be a major contributor to our GDP. We have the potential and we just have to do things the correct way,’’ Mhiribidi said.