PANJIM: Dempo Sports Club received three stars in the All India Football Federation academy accreditation to feature among the top 10 football academies in India with 365 points.

The Club with a rich history and sporting culture, despite being out of National League, still remained to be the best in the State far ahead as compared to their other rivals and the accreditation ratings stands as a proof for the same.

“Our accreditation scores is a reflection of our holistic team approach. I feel privileged to work with a dynamic administrative and technical staff under the leadership of our club Chairman Shrinivas Dempo for giving us the latitude for exercising our ideologies and supporting our expertise and initiatives. Credit to my team for their buy in of my football philosophy. I feel proud of our efforts and I am always of the belief that #TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIEVE MORE.!,” stated Dempo Sports Club Youth Development Technical Director Katz Naidoo.

Reliance Foundation Young Champs is the only academy to get five star rating while three academies-Baichung Bhutia Football Schools, Jamshedpur FC and Bengaluru FC got four star ratings.

Among the three-star ratings Boca Juniors Football Schools, FC Madras, Kenkre FC, Youth Football Club, Minerva Punjab FC, and Dempo SC were the six teams.

Other Goan Clubs Salgaocar FC, FC Goa and Sesa FA received two-star ratings while I-League side Churchill Brothers and Sporting Clube de Goa got one-star ratings apiece.

Out of the 123 clubs/academies who had applied for the academy accreditations, 89 cleared the criteria for 2019/20 season.

A club/academy is allowed to compete in the Youth Leagues (Hero Elite League, Hero Junior League and Hero Sub-Junior League) organised by AIFF, should they successfully clear the Accreditation process for the respective season. Incidentally, with a whopping success rate of 72%, the total number of successful academies has also gone up since the last season (83 academies cleared the process in 2018-19).

The Academy Accreditation process, which goes over six months, includes the establishment of the assessment criteria, organisation of workshops where the criteria were introduced and explained to all potential applicants, submission of mandatory documents for assessment followed by physical inspections carried out by designated AIFF personnel and the declaration of results.

All academies were assessed on the basis of age-group teams, technical support, training curriculum, talent identification and recruitment process, facilities and infrastructure, medical provisions and existing administrative support.