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Changes to Soccer Development in Australia


Bill Spiers

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Thought I would start this new thread to supplement the "Soccer Development in Canada" thread.

We often like to compare how we do things here with how they do it in Australia. The Crawford Report – dealing primarily with governance issues - has been extensively quoted on this forum.

However, we don’t hear as much about their elite player development programmes. So you may be interested to know that they are just about to kick-off their National Youth League. Details are available here

Some of the key points:

- each of the Australian Hyundai A-League clubs will field a team in the Youth League

- season runs from Sept. 28/08 to Feb 21/09

- youth players must be born between 1987 and 1991 (for the 2008/09 season)

(age 17 to 21)

- clubs may use up to 4 over-age players

- each of the youth players must play a minimum of 30 minutes per match

- Head Coach must have minimum of AFC B-license (or equivalent)

From what I can see, this is the key development opportunity for promising players aged 17 to 21. The numbers appear to be limited to around 140 players over 4 age groups.

Below this new National Youth League, it appears players play for their local club with elite players getting additional training with their State Association.

Examples can be found here for Soccer NSW

and here for Victoria

and for South Australia SA

From these links you can access additional pages describing their development programmes. If anyone notices any innovative ideas, please post here with the appropriate link. However, from what I’ve looked at so far, it appears very similar to the scenario in Canada at present.

Canadian Development Changes Discussion Thread</u>

http://www.canadian-soccer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17544

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quote:Originally posted by Bill Spiers

Thought I would start this new thread to supplement the "Soccer Development in Canada" thread.

We often like to compare how we do things here with how they do it in Australia. The Crawford Report – dealing primarily with governance issues - has been extensively quoted on this forum.

However, we don’t hear as much about their elite player development programmes. So you may be interested to know that they are just about to kick-off their National Youth League. Details are available here

Some of the key points:

- each of the Australian Hyundai A-League clubs will field a team in the Youth League

- season runs from Sept. 28/08 to Feb 21/09

- youth players must be born between 1987 and 1991 (for the 2008/09 season)

(age 17 to 21)

- clubs may use up to 4 over-age players

- each of the youth players must play a minimum of 30 minutes per match

- Head Coach must have minimum of AFC B-license (or equivalent)

From what I can see, this is the key development opportunity for promising players aged 17 to 21. The numbers appear to be limited to around 140 players over 4 age groups.

Below this new National Youth League, it appears players play for their local club with elite players getting additional training with their State Association.

Examples can be found here for Soccer NSW

and here for Victoria

and for South Australia SA

From these links you can access additional pages describing their development programmes. If anyone notices any innovative ideas, please post here with the appropriate link. However, from what I’ve looked at so far, it appears very similar to the scenario in Canada at present.

Don't mention the "A" word on this site...you have no idea what it will unleash

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To be honest this probably belongs in the world soccer forum - but the link to the Canadian development discussion makes sense. I have edited your first post with a link to the Canadian Development debate and moved this to the world soccer forum.

Cheers.

I also put a link to this discussion twice in the Canadian discussion thread.

http://www.canadian-soccer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17544

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