Executive Council approves the Football Academy Licensing Regulations 2025
The GFA Registered Football Academy Licensing Regulations 2025, which will control the licensing, regulation, and operations of football academies throughout the nation, have been approved by the Ghana Football Association’s Executive Council.
The rule, which takes effect immediately, enables clubs that now use the name “Academy” a year to comply with the standards. If they don’t comply with the regulations after this time, they will be forced to alter their name to Football Clubs.
Clubs that want to run an academy must fulfill stringent conditions and undergo inspection in accordance with the GFA Registered Football Academy Licensing Regulations 2025 before they can be approved to run football academies in Ghana.
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The Football Academy Licensing Regulations provide a platform and an opportunity for young boys and girls (6-18 years) to play football by inculcating professionalism amongst intending elite football players.
The new regulations also seek to create a safe and secure learning environment leading to self-knowledge on fair play, laws of the game, health and fitness, leadership and tactics in an enjoyable manner.
The overall objective is to foster the holistic player development approach through the implementing the GFA Talent Identification and Development programme.
The Regulations also applies to Beach Soccer and Futsal Academies for boys and girls.
The Regulation takes due cognisance of the provisions of the Children’s Act, the FIFA and the GFA Safeguarding Regulations and creates modalities and strict conditions for authorisation of international travels for academies and young players. Under this regulation, only clubs (companies) may own academies after going through the strict inspection regime.
The list of licensed academies in Ghana will be published on the GFA website. The Academies approved under the regulations will be issued a licence that will be reviewed and renewed on yearly basis to ensure the maintenance of regulatory standards.
The Academy Regulation is also aimed at streamlining the system to weed out unapproved and inappropriate establishments from the football ecosystem.
As part of this regulation, all licenced academies will play in the leagues in their football districts to promote competitiveness and full player development.
This regulation will be fully enforced to streamline and regulate the running of Football Academies in the country.
The Association will in the coming days hold a meeting on the subject and open the application process to its members.
