Completion of Review in to Private Academies and External Providers
Football NSW is pleased to announce the completion of its Review in to Private Academies and External Providers (the Review).
The Review, conducted by Peter Hugg, Football NSW’s Head of Football, was conducted over a period of four months and received more than 60 submissions from representatives of Member Associations, clubs and private academies, interested members of the public (mostly parents) and other key organisations.
The Final Report was presented to the Board of Football NSW last week, who in commending Peter for his extensive piece of work and analysis, approved all of the Review’s recommendations.
These recommendations will come in to effect for the 2019 football season, although some preliminary work has already commenced.
The Final Report, (Click here to view the private academy review), provides a comprehensive review of the landscape of private academies and external providers and an analysis of the reasons why there has been a proliferation of these operators in New South Wales, particularly in metropolitan Sydney.
It also provides a high level and cursory examination of some of the issues confronting youth football in Australia and makes brief reference to the recent decision by Football Federation Australia to conduct its own holistic review in to the Youth Development System (announced at the same time as the departure of Eric Abrams as National Technical Director).
The Review’s recommendations (presented in Chapter 3 of the Final Report) can be categorised in to four broad areas:
- The need to provide greater support and assistance to Member Associations and clubs to develop their own youth development programs and improve coaching through improved coach education;
- The need to provide greater education and guidance to parents and the broader community regarding the talented player pathway, what to look for when choosing an academy and examples of ‘best practice’;
- Removal of a number of Football NSW Competition Regulations particularly relating to teams participating in Champion of Champions and the State Cup (a memo outlining the full extent of the changes to the Competition Regulations for the 2019 season will be provided to Clubs and Associations shortly); and
- The decision not to introduce any form of regulatory framework by way of an Academy licencing or accreditation system at this point in time, preferring to allow the above three recommendations to improve the overall ‘market’ and the service quality offered by academies and external providers.
Football NSW Chief Executive, Stuart Hodge, stated, “There has been extensive consultation and analysis with this exercise and I thank those who participated and contributed to this excellent piece of work.
“Football NSW will now act on the recommendations with the key objective of addressing some of the collective concerns and deficiencies in this most important area of our game.”
