Team legend Pfeffer:

“As a family man, this is important to me”

NÖFV boss Gartner, legend Pfeffer, BW Linz coach Scheiblehner and ÖGK-NÖ boss Fidler (from left).(Bild: NÖFV)

Soccer is more than just a game - so the Lower Austrian Football Association and the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) have launched a joint project: "Club Coaching". Lower Austrian clubs can request experts from ÖGK to hold seminars for their members. They are now starting with the topics of nutrition, intergenerational dialog and heading.

"Sport is much more about health, it's prevention," says Lower Austrian Football Association President Hans Gartner with conviction, "everything you invest in young people in sport is saved later in rehabilitation."

Which also explains why the health insurance company is supporting the cooperation. "Prevention and the promotion behind it are important to us," says Norbert Fidler, head of ÖGK in Lower Austria, "Exercise offers the opportunity to live healthier." In Upper Austria, such a project has been running for ten years, with 600 workshops attended by 20,000 participants.

There is also support from BW Linz coach Gerald Scheiblehner: "We create the framework conditions so that players, coaches, officials, parents and children feel comfortable in the clubs. People are also more motivated there because it's their free time." In Lower Austria, legend Toni Pfeffer supports the project: "As a family man, it is important to me that the training of our youth takes place with good coaches at a high level!"