The FIFA talent development program is now in Ukraine

18.04.2023 16:00

The Ukrainian Football Association, despite the period of the most difficult test for our country, became one of the FIFA member associations that joined the implementation of the new FIFA Talent Development Scheme.

"For FIFA, one of the main goals is to give every talent a chance. And the launch of this program is one of the keys to achieving this goal," said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

The author and main coordinator of the program is Arsene Wenger, head of global football development at FIFA, who insists that giving a chance to every talent, regardless of where or when he/she was born, should be a strategic activity and responsibility of every national association in world with centralized support and guidance at a global level from FIFA.

One of FIFA's key principles for 2020-2023 is to increase global competitiveness and increase the number of national teams and clubs that will truly compete at the highest level for the highest honors. Therefore, it is necessary to develop talent while respecting the local environment at every stage of this process. The new program offers individual assistance to member associations to help them reach their full potential and ultimately improve global competitiveness for the future of football.

The launch of the program was preceded by a long global process of researching the environment in each of the 211 FIFA member associations. During 2020-2021, an analysis of the football ecosystem was carried out in each country in the context of attracting new players and the organization of the youth football system, which gave a clear picture of the global imbalance that exists in football, and at the same time the potential to overcome this imbalance.

Therefore, during 2023-2026, each national association that joined the analysis of the football ecosystem and previously declared an interest in participating in the program, offering its vision and its own pilot project, will work with a mentor appointed by FIFA to build a step-by-step and strategic path in identifying and supporting its young talents Thus, from the beginning of 2023, UAF cooperates with Finnish expert Hannu Tihinen. The coordinator of the program at UAF is the first vice-president Oleg Protasov.

The Ukrainian Football Association realizes that the identification, support and development of young talents is a key priority for the preservation and development of Ukrainian football in general, but especially in the conditions of war and in the upcoming stage of the post-war recovery period. Of course, working with talent starts with grassroots football as a key tool in getting kids involved in football for the first time, training coaches at all levels, which is an extremely important element in both developing and retaining players in football, managing the database and keeping track of their young players. This applies equally to both men's and women's football.

As part of the pilot project for the implementation of the FIFA Talent Development Program, UAF focused on identifying young talents by testing their natural physical abilities and further organizational support for the development of identified potential talents. This process should definitely be nationwide, but for now the focus is on the regional level, namely OTG, towns and villages, whose children have never been exposed to such testing and, for the most part, to an organized football process. It is this approach that will make it possible to identify and support all talented players as much as possible, informing the nearest children's football academies and the Youth Football Academy about their potential.

The main tool of the project is an analytical system developed specifically for testing children aged 8-12 years to assess physical abilities and potential for their development in case of involvement in a professionally organized training process. Both boys and girls are involved in the process.

The analytical system has an online platform with a unique array of information with the results of tests and videos of children, which allows children to monitor and improve their results, parents and coaches to follow the dynamics, and, of course, to promote the development of the scouting system in children's and youth football. At the European level, there are quite a few examples when such a system is coordinated by a national association, so with our experience we also create a positive precedent and a potential case. The platform and system are constantly updated and improved.

UAF is very active in training coaches, constantly introducing new courses and licenses for new categories of coaches, promoting the training of coaches for grassroots football to ensure a better player's path and football experience from the very beginning of his/her involvement in the game. Within the framework of the talent development project, all trainers and teachers from OTG will be involved in the training process, in which the project activities will take place, which would hardly be covered by the training under other circumstances. Also, graduates of the "D" UAF and "C" UEFA license level courses, who have completed training earlier, have the opportunity to practice by attending testing events.

As part of the first phase of the pilot project, a number of testing activities are planned in OTG in non-frontline regions (with maximum compliance with all safety requirements and measures) and training of trainers. In general, the activities of this pilot project are planned to reach up to 3 children and more than 000 trainers from rural areas.

The project is implemented in cooperation with the Institute of Football of the National University of Physical Education and Sports of Ukraine.