15 May 2018 – The South African Football Association (SAFA) as the custodians of football in the country has always had rules governing the establishment, regulation and management of football Academies in the country.

These are contained in the Academies Booklet drawn up with the intention of giving guidelines to football academies across the country.

It is in the light of these rules and regulations in the Academies Booklet that has seen the Association inspect and in some instances, close down some structures which do not comply to the required standards.

Recently, there has been a surge of bogus academies which unfortunately most of them, have neither undergone the SAFA’s stringent assessment procedures nor received the required licence.

It is regrettable that some of these structures called “academies” have been associated with all sorts of misdemeanours as reported in the Media.

As custodians of football, SAFA has embarked on the following measures to protect members of the public against falling to prey to fly-by-night football academies:

  • Enforcing regulations from the SAFA Academy booklet.
  • Closure of unregistered academies and those that do not meet the required standard. This will continue to be done with the help of the South African Police Services
  • Building capacity by appointing Provincial Officers to monitor and license all academies
  • Enforcement of the Integrity Declaration within the coaches and members of the technical staff
  • Adhering to the Children Act which is documented within all coaching education manuals

“We also ask members of the public to be proactive with some of these academies because, we as an Association have put measures into place and we appeal to parents and guardians to be on the lookout for dubious institutions which mushroom for personal benefit,” said SAFA CEO Dennis Mumble.

Meanwhile, as part of proactive measures to curb academies that do not conform to laid down regulations, SAFA Johannesburg has closed down a number of academies and will step up their effort to monitor all institutions.

According to SAFA Johannesburg secretary Colin Jones, the Province which is a hub of a number of academies, is busy profiling all academies and their coaching staff. This is done in conjuction with the SAFA Coaching Education Department which has records of all trained coaches in the country.

“We are busy investigating all academies within our Province and those that do not conform to required standards will be shut down.

“Going forward, we have to take strict control of these academies,” added Jones.

In the meantime, SAFA and Gauteng Police have joined hands to get to the bottom of bogus academies, some of which are said to be abusing children.