COSAFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will host an Instructors Course in Johannesburg for female coaches from around the region, with the seven-day event to get under way on Thursday.

Coaches from across the region will undergo intensive training with the hope that they show enough quality to become instructors themselves, taking their knowledge back to their own countries to pass it on to their local coaches.

The course will be led by three leading CAF Instructors, South Africans Fran Hilton-Smith and Sheryl Botes, as well as Jacqueline Shipanga from Namibia.

“We have invited women from across the region to attend the course, and have coaches from Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and so on,” Hilton-Smith explains.

“It is a CAF and COSAFA initiative to develop women instructors in the zone and is the first of its kind. After COSAFA it will move around the zones, but we are leading the way with the first one.

“After the course, which runs from March 5-11, we will assess who is capable of becoming a CAF Instructor in the COSAFA region to grow our talent in coaching.”