CAF Holds Strategy Workshop For Youth Football Development
In a significant gathering of football development professionals, the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) hosted its pivotal Academies Meeting on 4 December, 2024, in Cairo, Egypt.
The event represented a critical opportunity for African football to collectively strategize and enhance youth development across the continent.
The one-day conference brought together key representatives from football academies across Africa. The discussions were aimed at refining strategies for nurturing young talent, a crucial aspect of the continent’s football ecosystem.
Key Highlights of the Conference
CAF plans to collaborate with Member Associations (MAs) to organize national academy tournaments across age categories, boosting competition and talent development. Competitions are essential for player growth by complementing their training. Proposed structures include:
- Integrating academies into existing youth tournaments for exposure.
- Creating age-specific competitions, grouped by skill levels, for balanced matchups.
- Structuring competitions based on logistics:
National-level tournaments, regional tournaments leading to a national final and three-tiered community, regional and national phases to crown champions.
This initiative aims to enhance player development through structured and competitive platforms. By introducing a categorization system, it will enable regional tournaments. The initial phase involves organizing Under-16 tournaments featuring the top six academies from each country, competing in a round-robin format.
To support the development and sustainability of high-performing academies, CAF will implement an annual fee for advanced-level academies. This fee serves a dual purpose: generating revenue for CAF and motivating academies to continuously enhance their standards and infrastructure.
This would thereby promote overall football development across the continent.
Strategic Sessions
The conference featured several key sessions, including FIFA’s insights on global youth development, an overview of the CAF Academies Program, a panel discussion on collaborative problem-solving, and an academy presentation on innovative practices.
Highlights included a visit to the ZED Academy for practical training insights and an official dinner for relationship building and networking.
Significance of the Meeting
The gathering underscores CAF’s commitment to developing football talent at the grassroots level. By bringing together academy directors, coaches, and football development experts, the conference aims toshare best practices in youth football development, identify challenges in current academy systems, develop collaborative strategies for improving young player training and align continental approaches to football youth development.
Looking Ahead
CAF aims to elevate African football academy standards by implementing a structured development program that nurtures talent, improves player skills and ultimately enhances the continent’s global football performance.
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