long criticized for its interpersonality, the professional coaching diploma is open to coaches from the amateur world

“When you come from the amateur environment, it’s the cross and the banner to enter the training cycles of the Federation”, regretted in 2019 Alain Pochat, then coach of Villefranche-sur-Saône (third division). A short sentence which was then reproached to him, according to him, by the French Football Federation (FFF), but which did not prevent him, a year later, from finally integrating the promotion of the Professional Coach Brevet of football (BEPF), mandatory to coach in Ligue 1, Ligue 2, and National. Like him, more and more coaches without a professional football background are now accessing this training. Long accused of favoring former professional footballers in its selection of candidates, the Federation is opening up more to different profiles.

The list of candidates admitted to BEPF training was made public by the FFF on Thursday 6 April. The 2023-2024 promotion will thus be made up of five former professional players with rich careers in the first or second division, including in women’s D1, two former players who have only experienced professionalism for a few matches, and three candidates having no experience as a professional footballer. All have one thing in common: they have already accumulated experience as head or assistant coach, at different levels.

Of the last five promotions received at the BEPF, this experience seems to have become an essential criterion, since all the candidates admitted, even former professional players, already have several seasons on the bench. The only exception: Habib Beye, former OM player, accepted into the 2021-2022 promotion a few weeks before being recruited into the staff of Red Star (National), then becoming its main coach. But since the creation of the diploma in 1991, then under the name of DEPF (Diploma of professional football coach), this requirement of experience has not always been the norm.

85% of former pros among graduates between 2002 and 2014

In the Swiss newspaper The weatherin 2002, Jean-Marc Furlan described his entry into training without having applied: “Aimed Jacquet [qui était alors directeur technique national] called me to tell me that I was coming to graduate. The sending of the files was already closed, but he did not want to know anything, and I went there”. Did the FFF then favor an inter-society of former professional footballers? According to a study by Jean Bréhon, Hugo Juskowiak and Loïc Sallé, entitled “Professional football coach: route of a spoiled player?”, 85% of graduates between 2002 and 2014 were former pro players with a relatively long career. “I can make the same reading of these figures. I hope there were no free passes, it would be heartbreaking, but I’m not going to comment on something on which I had no influence”answers Hubert Fournier, national technical director of the FFF since 2017.

A quick reading of the criteria to be met to apply makes it possible to understand these figures: former professional footballers must justify 150 matches in Ligue 1 or 10 selections for the France team, when amateur coaches must have officiated as the main coach of the first team of a non-professional club, operating at national level, for five seasons. Equivalent experiences? “Being an N2 coach for five years shows that we have worked hard enough to know the job”judge Alain Pochat. “But a coach who wants to become a pro must learn to manage the pressure, the media… It’s an approach to the profession that we don’t know, whereas former professional footballers have already apprehended it“, recognizes Fabien Pujo, coach of Goal FC, in National 2, whose application for the diploma failed for the fourth time.

“We can also think that a former player had the ability to feed on the coaches he met during his career.believes Hubert Fournier, who has heard of the criticism surrounding the BEPF selections but does not want to “witch hunt with former players, who also have the right to train”.

Like Will Still, several success stories

Almost absent from the candidates admitted until 2014, coaches from the amateur world, without a professional football background, have nevertheless increased in number in recent years. They are between two and four among the ten selected in each of the last promotions. A new impetus driven in particular by the reform of the status of National coaches, the third division, who must, since 2016, hold the BEPF. If he had to wait several seasons before being admitted, despite a remarkable coaching CV among amateurs, Alain Pochat notes an evolution: “I realize that, over the past three or four years, we have seen more N2 and N3 coaches entering training”.

“There has never been a desire to exclude amateur coachestempers Hubert Fournier. But this reform has changed things, because another audience is targeted, with amateur coaches who can aim for the rise in National, and who want the diploma. So that requires an opening.”

“I imagine some people thought they were illegitimate to try their luck. Now we’ve broken down the barriers.”

Hubert Fournier, DTN of the FFF

at franceinfo: sport

These amateur coaches also rely on “ambassadors”as Fabien Pujo calls them, with the success of Christophe Pélissier, coach of Auxerre, but also that of Franck Haise (Lens) or Régis Le Bris (Lorient), who certainly had a professional career as footballers, but who made all their ranges of amateur coach before arriving in Ligue 1. “Like Will Still, in Reims, they are examples of success that make us optimisticsays Fabien Pujo. Today, there is a generation of coaches who have not experienced professional football, but who have learned a lot through their research. The game of the best teams, everything is decrypted now. At the beginning of my training, there was no Internet, there were not so many books and magazines. But today, everything is shared, there are books on management, mental and physical preparation, positional play, tactical periodization… This accelerates the ability to be ready”.

A recognition that remains essential

The successes in Reims of Will Still, and of Didier Digard in Nice, would they then call into question the need for a diploma for coaches? Their clubs currently have to pay a fine of 25,000 euros per game because they are not yet graduates. “Without this obligation, I think many presidents would take the tracksuit to train. Already the profession is struggling to be recognized and that at each match, everyone allows themselves to say that this or that should have been done… The diploma is really essential, especially since it validates skills and that training makes us evolve“, slice Alain Pochat. Places are still expensive, with only ten admitted per year in France.

Moreover, Didier Digard obtained a place in the next promotion, while Will Still will pass his diploma in Belgium. “We are not here to make a factory of unemployed people. There are not places for everyone in professional football, and with the overhaul of the championships, there will even be fewer places in Ligue 1 or in Ligue 2. It would not be reasonable to open the diploma more”justifies Hubert Fournier.

A last effort of openness remains nevertheless possible: that of feminization. By integrating the next promotion, Sandrine Soubeyrand, the most capped player in the history of the French team (198 selections) and coach of Paris FC in D1 Arkéma, will only become the fourth woman to pass the BEPF. “We are going to progress. Until now, we lacked candidates, because very few are committed to this long journey. Some of our former great internationals sometimes prefer to build their future life, their family. But I am quite positive about the coming”assures the national technical director.