In the fall, Helsinki Football Club surprised by appointing a 35-year-old Spaniard as its head coach, Ferran Sibilan. Sibila, who previously worked for example in Malmö in Sweden and Barnsley in England, had no head coaching experience at the adult level.
HJK’s director of sports Vesa Mäki justified the choice that Sibila has also been responsible for the team’s way of playing and its training in her previous clubs.
Read also: A Swedish journalist tells : This is what HJK’s new head coach Ferran Sibila is like
A mandatory degree is missing
However, HJK is now in a confusing situation. Sibila does not have the Uefa Pro coaching license required for a Veikkausliiga head coach. The topic was reported earlier Helsingin sanomat newspaper.
Uefa Pro is, for example, the highest level of the trainings organized by the Finnish Football Association – specifically a degree aimed at elite sports and adult coaching.
The betting league in league license regulations it is clearly stated that the team must have a head coach with a valid Uefa Pro license.
Clubs have the opportunity to apply for an exception to some points of the license regulations. You cannot get an exception to the A criteria, which also includes the head coach.
In Finland, the regulations of the European football association UEFA are largely followed.
– It is desired that the level of requirements is practically the same in the Veikkausliiga as it is for Veikkausliiga clubs that play European games. We wanted to keep the criteria the same, so that Veikkausliiga clubs will then automatically meet the UEFA license criteria, Pallloiito’s club license manager Mikko Aitkoski to clarify for Urheilu.
HJK’s contingency plan
HJK knew that Sibila does not have a Uefa Pro qualification, says director of sports Vesa Mäki.
– However, he came first in our selection criteria, and then we started thinking about how to get Uefa Pro for him.
Sibila had suggested to HJK that the head coaching position could be shared.
– And when we knew we were going to continue Ossi Virran with, we didn’t see any problem with it, says Mäki.
Ossi Virta moved to HJK’s coaching team last summer. He has a Uefa Pro license. Virta was already responsible for HJK’s offensive play last season Toni Korkeakunnsen being the head coach.
– Almost without exception, it is implemented in several clubs, even if there is one head coach. And in many clubs it’s quite the opposite. Besides the head coach, someone else is responsible for quite a large part, says Mäki.
– It’s clear that without a diploma, Sibila won’t be a head coach on her own.
If the club violates license regulations, the sanction is to restrict player transfers. However, the club does not break the regulations if the head coach in the season in question participates in a course from which a Pro license can be obtained. The coach selected for the course or who is on the course is therefore equal to the one who completed the course.
The football association’s Uefa Pro courses have usually started at the end of an even-numbered year, which means that the next course in Finland does not start until a year from now.
Therefore, Sibila is supposed to participate in the Uefa Pro course organized in Sweden, which starts in February.
Leader of the Swedish Football Association’s Uefa Pro course Roger Sandberg commented to Helsingin Sanomat that he does not yet know when the Swedish Federation will decide on the persons selected for the course.
HJK must submit its head coach contract to the Finnish Football Association in January. Mäki says that HJK has a clear plan.
If Sibila has been accepted to Sweden for the Uefa Pro course by then, HJK can announce her alone as the head coach.
– But if there is no such (approval) at that point, then we will certainly have Ossi Virta and Ferran Sibila as head coaches.
The plan does not fit the regulations of the Football Association
However, HJK’s plan, i.e. the system of two head coaches, is not that simple, as can be seen from an interview with Mikko Aitkoski, the club license manager of the Football Association.
The league license regulations were specified for the 2023 season. The section on the duties of the head coach that was included in UEFA’s license regulations was added to the license regulations:
“According to the license regulations, the person announced as head coach must be responsible for the representative team’s game selections, tactics and training, guiding the players and other background personnel in the dressing room and technical area before, during and after the match, as well as obligations towards the media.”
– As long as this detailed text came, we had accepted the models of the two head coaches. Now we are talking about one person. So Uefan’s regulations say a qualified head Coach / the head Coach and so on. It combines the coach, tasks and training requirement. After all, we don’t speak in the plural, Aitkoski points out.
So you no longer accept the system of two head coaches or can it be flexible?
– No. It was not accepted for this year either, but no one offered it either.
HJK said that if Sibila cannot start the Uefa Pro course in Sweden, they will appoint Sibila and Virra as head coaches. Now I got the idea from you that it’s not possible anymore.
– Then Ossi Virta is the head coach. That person is a head coach who has a Pro degree or is taking that course.
You can’t control how HJK divides its coaching responsibilities, but can HJK appoint Sibila as head coach at all if he doesn’t have a Uefa Pro license or hasn’t started the course?
– That’s a good question. The licensing committee is the one who interprets the regulations. We have not had such a case during the current regulations.
To summarize. Of course, HJK can divide the responsibilities of its coaches in training and in the rest of its team’s everyday life as it wishes.
In match events, the Football Association does supervise the activities. For example, Palloliitto has had to intervene in the activities of clubs when the team’s head coach, who was notified to Palloliitto, has not been marked in the minutes, but has followed the events in the stands.
– The match event is what matters the most, even in light of these regulations. Among other things, we talk about player selection, managing the game event and interviews, says Aitkoski.
If Sibila does not get to start the Uefa Pro course, Ossi Virta will probably be the only official head coach of HJK next season in light of the license regulations. In this case, he is also responsible for the duties of the head coach, such as press conferences.
SJK has the same considerations
Veikkausliiga has seen systems of two head coaches before, but as explained above, the regulations were still different.
For example, in the 2022 season as the head coach of VPS Jussi Nuorelan was accompanied by the sports director Janne Lindberg, where the Uefa Pro license was found. Nuorela then started the Pro course at the end of 2022.
However, the tune-ups of the two head coaches have not been very common. With the Uefa Pro thing, there have also been forgetfulness for the rising teams, when even the ratings in the First Division have been a notch lower.
Among the next season’s Veikkausliiga teams, SJK is currently in a similar situation to HJK. The other head coaches next season have a Pro license or are on a course that started at the end of 2022.
SJK has not named its head coach yet. The team is preparing for the season of the Scottish Stevie Grieve under the management who coached SJK Akatemia in Ykkösen last season. He does not have a Uefa Pro license.
– We are now working to fulfill Veikkausliiga’s license conditions in a way that enables the utilization of Stevie’s skills in our representative team, stated SJK’s technical director Richie Dorman.
Toni Lehtinenwho returned to SJK’s coaching from JJK’s ranks, is on the Pro course for those who started in 2022, so he is probably one option.