The development of football players at the youth level would not have been possible without a football academy. The FA Thailand plans to support the youth development for the academies across Thailand to have the same direction at two levels.

The first level is the opening of the Thai Football Academy to register as a member of the FA Thailand. This will provide the academy with the opportunity to participate in future youth development projects that the association organizes.

The Asian Football Confederation has 3 levels of academy quality development plans. A 1-star rating is guaranteed to be a standard academy. 2-Star is an academy that has both the quality of coaching and the ability to produce good football players. A 3-star rating for an academy with a clear track record of coaching.

To emphasize, youth development is now recognized as the pillar of football. The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has a program to encourage members to focus on youth development as an integral part of the creation of football at the national level.

FIFA has sent analysts to several member countries to help guide the development of the academies. Thailand is one of them, and the academy is registered as a member of the FA Thailand. It helps the academy players to be listed as FIFA members, which keeps track of the movements of each player, helping to prevent young footballers from becoming a business tool.

The AFC has implemented the AFC Elite Youth Scheme program to classify the standards of the youth teams of professional clubs, top academies, and national academies in each country in Asia. The Implementation divides into 3 levels (one, two, and three stars) by using the 20 criteria of the AFC standards, which will emphasize the details, guidelines, or structures for the development of the youth team.

If we join both systems: the FAT with 3 levels (bronze, silver, and gold) and AFC with 3 levels (one, two, and three stars), we will have a range of possibilities that allows us to take advantage of all the different casuistry of Thai football. The integration of both systems should allow the academies to gradually complete the different levels from the best local schools to reach the AFC standards.

This process is integrated with the application by the FAT to become a full member of the Youth Scheme.

The FAT Academy Licensing program will be an extension of the FAT Registration System for the academies as mentioned before. This project will allow academies or youth teams to register with the association by submitting information, documents, or evidence in accordance with the standards and criteria set by the association at each level.

The FAT has adopted the guidelines that the AFC established and adapted to the environment of youth football in Thailand which will be divided into 3 levels: bronze, silver, and gold.

This system of licenses shows guidelines or directions for development and will provide to the academies for operations to continuously improve the organization to get higher quality and professionalism. In addition, the association will also bring examples or information that the academies or the youth teams can implement or adapt to suit their clubs’ guidelines.