The new EuroHockey Coaching Committee had its first meeting to kickstart a new two-year cycle last week in Brussels.

Joined by FIH Academy’s Mike Joyce, the day oozed with positivity, challenges and a wide range of discussion points and he said of the meeting: “The EuroHockey Institute has been a major catalyst in bringing together education experts and leads from national associations in Europe and beyond, encouraging them to share and collaborate like never before.”

The committee reviewed the structure of the EuroHockey Institute Coaching Pillar. Following feedback and demand from national associations, there is an appetite to provide more structured growth and programmes in each nation. EuroHockey will announce the new structure in late spring 2024.

Following a review across EuroHockey’s member national associations, the group discussed the merits of using the European Qualification Framework to understand the learning outcomes each nation delivers as part of their coaching frameworks.

This, therefore, allows freer movement of coaches between clubs and nations. EuroHockey and FIH will post later in 2024 about the steps that have been taken.

The meeting also allowed members to share their work and coaching framework with a follow-up by the KNHB, which engaged prior agenda points about the ability to measure and assess learners in different environments.

The committee was also joined by new member Sam Beveridge (ENG) and Henri-Claude Lambert (FRA) for the first time.

All of the work was done in a joined up approach between EuroHockey Institute and FIH Academy to help push forward the global development of hockey.