Supreme Council for Youth and Sports chairman and the Bahrain Olympic Committee President Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa affirmed the importance of developing and qualifying administrative cadres in the sports sector for the advancement of sport and youth movement, pointing out that the Bahrain Olympic Committee has succeeded in organizing a number of courses which had positive impact on the progress of sport in general the Kingdom.
This came during the annual graduation ceremony for the participants in the programmes, organised by the Sports Training and Development Section in collaboration with the World Academy of Sport. The function was hosted by the Sofitel Hotel in Zallaq under the patronage of Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Shaikh Nasser added that the programme is one of the most successful programmes organised by the committee and aims to improve the levels of sports administrative cadres in the Kingdom by developing, qualifying and providing them with modern information.
Shaikh Nasser noted that these programmes received widespread success and significant participation, which underlines the strength of such programmes and what they contain in terms of useful and modern information in the field of science management, stressing that the committee seeks to develop all its scientific programmes for the Bahraini cadres as part of its new strategy.
The annual graduation ceremony featured a video presentation highlighting various programmes and sport management courses, followed by a speech from head of Sports Training and Development Section Nabil Taha Al Shehab, in which he praised the programmes offered by both the coaches or administrators.
Al Shahab noted that the national coaching programme organised by his section in collaboration with the Coaching Association of Canada has achieved significant positive results over the past 10 years, as more coaches started joining the programme.
The programme has become one of the best programmes in the Middle East as approximately 1,500 men and women coaches from Bahrain and other GCC countries have signed up, in addition to winning the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Creative Sports Award for the best sport programme.
On his part, Director of World Academy of Sport Chris Solley said one of the reasons for choosing Bahrain as a regional hub for the management programme organized by the academy was due to the significant support offered by sports leaders in the Kingdom of Bahrain for its athletes.
Solley said: “What really encouraged us to choose Bahrain was the success of the national coaching programme, in addition to the fact that the majority of the management staff working in the field of sports are citizens”.
The ceremony included a with a brief poetry presentation, performed by young poet Hanadi of the Royal Charity Organization for orphans, who delivered one of the poems of Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
At the end of the ceremony, Shaikh Nasser, along with Bahrain Olympic Committee Acting General Secretary Abdulrahman Askar, distributed the certificates to 57 graduates in total in all four programmes.
They are the postgraduate certificate in sports management (9 graduates), Bodies and Sports Federation Management (20), Events Management (14), Introduction to Sports Management (14).