Fife Elite Football Academy

Fife Football Association and its four Senior Professional Clubs are pleased to announce that with effect from season 2014/15, the four Clubs will combine their current Youth Academy structures and apply to compete in the Club Academy Scotland Elite Programme as the Fife Elite Football Academy. (FEFA)

Currently, the four Fife Clubs each have their own teams and compete in the Club Academy Scotland Initiative Level Programme.

With effect from next season the Fife Regional Academy will compete in the Elite Programme with Clubs such as DundeeUtd, Aberdeen and Celtic also involved.

Although the Regional Academy will mean a reduction in players from the current four Senior Clubs individual academies, a close link will be maintained with the recently announced Fife Football Performance Academy run by the Scottish FA Development Department and supported by Fife Council.

John Lints, Fife Football Association Chairman said

“By combining the resources of the four Fife Senior Clubs, we will be able to significantly increase the level of investment in player development and offer a far higher level of Technical Coaching, Sports Science and Medical Provision.

By linking with the Fife Football Performance Academy supported by Fife Council, we can now identify a player pathway in Fife where a young footballer can develop and progress from grass roots football to play professional football for one of the four Senior Fife Clubs”  

For Cowdenbeath FC, Tom Ewing, Director with responsibility for the Clubs Youth System said, “For some years, CowdenbeathFC has produced talented young players through its youth system and the current first team squad is evidence of its successbut the fact remains that all the Fife Clubs play in the SFA Club Academy Scotlands Initiative level and no single Club has the resources to move up into the SFA Elite programme which attracts the top young talent in Scotland, many of them from Fife but who are snapped up by the Elite Academy Teams in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh. This decision to form a Regional Academy has been supported by each Club after careful consideration and discussion including with the SFA and the Forth Valley Academy which at this time is the only Regional Academy in Scotland.

There will be transitional arrangements next season as we move from the Initiative to Elite level but there will be 6 squads formed from Under 11 to Under 17 and with the links to the Fife Football Performance Academy we will be able to identify the best talent at an early age to ensure that we are at the forefront of player development and   that we are able to give Fife youngsters the best chance possible to become a professional football player.