Banyana Banyana assistant coach Simphiwe Dludlu confirms exciting USA trip

Fresh from the FIFA World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand with the national team, Dludlu has been enrolled in a three-week-long coaching program that will open doors for her abroad.

She gives more details on the exciting project.     

"I'm off to the US, my visa was ready before I left for the World Cup, my tickets, everything was ready. I'm actually going to the USA for an international coaching enrichment certificate program," Dludlu said.

"This is done by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. So, what they do, they speak to different federations that are affiliated with the Olympic Committee. 

So, SASCOC is them for us in South Africa where they get to nominate. So, I took my CV in and all of that and then out of the different CVs from the different sporting codes, mine was picked."

The 35-year-old leaves on Friday and reveals her topic of choice is “long-term athlete development”, which is neglected in SA.

"I actually fly out this coming Friday. So, I'm gonna be there for three weeks. The first week and a half, we are just gonna be recapping on the work that we've done and learning some other things there about the sport and all of that. 

One of my topics that maybe propelled them to pick me as well is 'long-term athlete development' because that's something that I think South Africa needs to improve on and I took a liking to it because my interest is there.

To see how we can push that structure of long-term athlete development from the grassroots up to the top for South Africa and how we can improve that because countries like the USA are dominating when it comes to different sporting codes and such structures as well."