24 February 2019 – Director of Football Development at the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Raul Neves Chipenda, believes that the continued use of the Catapult GPS System on the African continent will play a significant role in helping to take football on the continent to another level.
Speaking at the CAF GPS Workshop currently underway in Sandton, Gauteng, Chipenda said that coaches can now give immediate feedback on their players’ individual performances and cardiovascular wellbeing, as this was not the case in the past.
“Initially, the coaching staff had to wait for their players to finish training or playing a match before they could assess their individual performances on the pitch,” Chipenda said.
“This new technology now allows them to get a live update of their players’ performances and cardiovascular wellbeing while they are training or playing a match.
“This is extremely important because it also allows them to make more informed decisions when it comes to resting or substituting players, given the amount of work they have put in during their training sessions or in match situations.”
In total, CAF has donated three sets of 25 devices to 54 Member Associates in order to use in their respective countries.
Chipenda happily stated that CAF is the only federation in the world to have gone through the trouble of making sure that they make these devices available to their Member Associates.
“We decided to have this workshop because we want our Members Associates to know the significance of using this device in all levels of a player’s development in football,” added Chipenda. “This will help both coaches and players on how to manage or push into a level of performance they want to get in.”
“Europe has been using this devices for years now, however, CAF are the first ones to get this latest technology available to our Member Associates without making them pay a single cent.”
The workshop kicked off on Saturday, 23 February 2019, and comes to an end on Thursday, 28 February 2019.