Ali Thameem
On his first public appearance in last night’s press conference, the new head coach of Odi Sports Ian Andrew Gillan shared his thoughts on the task ahead, the potential of young players, and the state of Maldivian football.
“That’s something that I enjoy. I enjoy challenges. I enjoy trying to give players a little bit of a hunt. A little bit of a mentoring, in the professional game. As you know, I’ve coached several teams in various countries”.
Ian had built a strong portfolio over the past 15 years of his coaching career. Starting from managing Aussie side Perth FC, Ian went on to manage different clubs from Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia over the past decade. He later coached Nepalese side Lalitpur City FC before moving to India to manage Calicut FC in the inaugural season of Super League Kerela.
In 2021 and 2023, Ian took up scouting assignments in the EFL Championship, reporting directly to the head coaches of Middlesborough and Stoke City.
“We are very big on development of young players, because they are the future.. they are the future for the country as well. Hopefully one day, the Maldives will have some success in the Asian Cup, and that’s a little bit off at the moment”
Ian shares his ambitions for the club, and the importance of utilising young footballers:
“We’ve always had good young talents who came through and represented the national teams, and became good professionals within that country”.
He went on to describe why Odi Sports and him are a good fit.
“That was one big thing that appealed to me, like the ambition. I mean the club (Odi Sports) just came up from the second division. And, I’m quite an ambitious person, to be honest.. And we had correlations. We had similarities, et cetera.”
Ian states that he is quite flexible to cultural differences, and that he doesn’t mind the warmer weather of the country either. He ends the conference saying he hopes it turns out to be a good working relationship for him with Odi Sports.
