For the next two years, Steven Naismith will work towards his UEFA Pro-Licence. The qualification that caused such a brouhaha 12 months ago when the Heart of Midlothian coaching set-up was announced.

Everyone should know the background. Due to the requirement for the head coach to possess the Pro-Licence to manage in European competition, Frankie McAvoy took on that role with Naismith installed as technical coach before a switch to the current structure in September when the team had been eliminated at the play-off stage of the Conference League against PAOK. 

It is the final step on the coaching course ladder and one Naismith has had to wait on undertaking after achieving his A-Licence.

Last week, the Hearts manager spent two days with the latest cohort of the UEFA Pro-Licence course run by the Scottish FA at an introductory meeting at Hampden Park. As well as Naismith, a host of other well-known names from around Scottish football are on the course, including Scott Brown, David Gray, Jonny Hayes and Charlie Adam, who is the manager of Fleetwood Town, friendly opponents for Hearts this summer.

As revealed by Hearts Standard earlier this season, the SFA was permitted to run a second course alongside the current one due to demand. They had sought an exemption from UEFA to do so because, as per Article 14 of the UEFA Coaching Convention, updated in 2020, associations are only permitted to run one every two years.

With the UEFA Pro-Licence, Naismith will encounter a different course to the ones he has done previously. There will be a greater focus on the wider role of the head coach or manager, preparing candidates for elite-level management.

The organisation states it "will provide participants with a clear understanding of player and team development and the role of a head coach at professional level. It will help coaches develop and apply technical policy and philosophy, creating a winning team and high-performance culture".

The course will encompass everything from being accountable to the club's board to dealing with agents, from developing and applying a club’s technical policy and philosophy to ensuring the right balance between the players’ professional and private lives.

READ MORE: How Hearts season was one of time: Naismith, falling apart, Shankland, feats

"I’ve got a fair few friends who have gone through it, Frankie [McAvoy] and Gordy [Forrest] have gone through it," Naismith told Hearts Standard.

"Obviously, it is a substantial course over two years. I think it looks at everything from philosophy to how you set up a team, but more the management side of things. How to deal with situations within a club, going for jobs, all these aspects rather than the specifics of a session. As you go through your C, B and A that is what it is predominantly all about, on the pitch how do you deliver a session, get these points across, these areas to work on.

"This is much more of a management course, dealing with boards, owners, transfers, squads, players that are happy, players unhappy, all these different elements which I’ve probably come up against in the last year, covered quite a lot of them which should stand me in good stead for it."

Naismith began his coaching journey as a player, undertaking his B-Licence at Everton. However, he delayed going through his A-Licence until he retired to focus on his playing career. He would still gain coaching experience during his time at Goodison Park and then Norwich City and latterly Hearts before retiring.

Hearts Standard:

Previously, the Hearts head coach could have sought an exemption from the qualification due to his playing career. The 2015 UEFA Coaching Convention stated,  "A long-serving professional player who has played for at least seven full years as a professional player in the top division of a FIFA or UEFA member association and has played at least 50 international competitive matches for his senior national team or a club first team may, upon written request, be exempted by UEFA from the required coaching experience".

That admission wasn't included in the updated convention in 2020. 

The badge process could be viewed as a box-ticking exercise for individuals like Naismith who have spent their whole career in football. The 37-year-old, however, finds them beneficial and understands their value. 

"They are good," he said. "The hard part for any course is there is no other business like football. It’s the wild west. There are no real rules, anything can actually happen. To actually put on a course that tailors specifically is near-on impossible. I think what they have done with the courses is put on something that is a guide, this is how you should see it.

"The way some managers work compared to other coaches is one end of the spectrum to the other. It’s more about giving you a guideline through it and putting some structures in place. More the ones with pitch sessions and giving you the freedom to work within those boundaries. I think that is helpful."

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The Coaching Convention was set up by UEFA in 1998 to do just that, provide a common benchmark for how the member associations educate coaches and "a framework for raising the status of the coaching profession across Europe and facilitating the free movement of qualified professionals within Europe". 

With regards to the Pro-Licence, there will be a minimum of 360 hours of education, 140 hours of theory and practical units off the pitch and 220 hours of practical units on the pitch, including work experience.

The course syllabus resembles something you would get on your first day at university. It outlines all the competencies the coach is set to learn as well as 16 different modules, from match and performance analysis to leadership.

It is understood there will also be a language element with Naismith joking he may opt for Japanese.

There will be a study visit to a professional sport and high-performance environment while education is enhanced by guest speakers from the football and business world which the Hearts head coach is looking forward to.

"The different speakers you get on and people with real-life experience," he said. "That’s not just guys who have played the game and coached. It’s people who have had different backgrounds that have led them into football. Those moments to engage with those people are very worthwhile and very good areas you can learn from.

"In every industry, you have your management, your leadership, you’ve got all these areas and problem-solving you can touch on. That is probably the bit that I am looking forward to the most, getting an understanding from people who are not necessarily within football but have got very stressful environments to work in and leading people, how they cope, what they use to cope and what makes them good."