Netball is set to gain a technical director shortly and that person will be handsomely rewarded.
According to the Cayman Islands Netball Association, the new technical director/national coach is slated to earn a salary between $40K and $50K. The contract will be for two years initially.
Netball association president Lucille Seymour states the person being targeted is not local.
“The Minister for Sports (Mark Scotland) is concentrating on the focus sports, which is the right way to go,” Seymour said. “A couple of applications have come in for our post and the plan is for the person to start in January.
“We would like someone local but the opportunity is not there yet. We want our technical director to be no less qualified than the other focus sports like football. If you want good athletes you need good coaches, facilities and avenues of participation. The issue is it takes money to do all of that.”
As with the other focus sports (namely athletics, basketball, cricket, football and swimming), local government is offering financial support to netball. In fact, according to the 2011-2012 purchase agreement between Cabinet and the netball association, government is budgeting $77,393 as a grant to the sport.
The purchase agreement indicates a percentage of that money is being put towards hiring a technical director. The document also points out that the government allotment for netball is nearly double compared to the 2010-2011 term (which was $34,200). Seymour readily states a portion of the person’s salary will come out of the 2011-2012 grant but declined to say exactly how much.
According to the International Federation of Netball Associations website, the successful applicant must possess coaching success at an international level. Among the duties is marketing the sport to the schools and at a district level.
Seymour states the position has high standards in place.
“We’ve started the process of hiring a technical director. We’ve sent out information to the international federation (the world governing body for netball) and other networks. We want the person to know more or as much about netball as the association.
“We’ve gone without a technical director since 2002. We need someone equal to or better than Jean Pierre (the last person to hold that position). Cayman netball deserves no less than that.”
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