Nike Academy Becomes Full-time

The Nike Academy has been given the go-ahead to run as a full time operation after Nike and the Barclays Premier League confirmed their commitment to the talent development programme.

The Nike Academy is popular as it offers young players without professional clubs from across the globe a chance to enter the professional game through world-class coaching, anesthetist alongside games against elite academies and professional reserve teams. 

Since the Academy’s inception in 2009, nine academy graduates have won full time contracts to professional teams. There have also been fixtures played against the likes of FC Barcelona, Celtic and Paris Saint-Germain. 

Barclays Premier League director of Youth, Ged Roddy MBE, said: “The Nike Academy has had a number of success stories with players that have entered the professional game, most recently Ryan James who was helped on his way by the superb environment that has been created, and has just been signed by Oxford United.”

Huw Jennings, former academy head at Fulham, is the Academy director and under his watch the 22 man squad train five days a week at Loughborough University where they have use of grass pitches, an Olympic size swimming pool, Hipac running track and Powerbase gym. 

Access to these elite facilities is complemented by the full range of Nike Football equipment and apparel.