Scottish FA Performance Strategy

The roots of the Scottish Performance Strategy date back to the review of Scottish football conducted by Henry McLeish in 2010. From there, the Scottish FA commissioned Alistair Gray of Renaissance & Co to lead the consultancy phase of our Performance Strategy development.

This began in earnest in 2011 when the Scottish FA appointed Dutchman Mark Wotte as the first ever Performance Director, with the principle aims of ensuring future Scottish National teams qualified for major tournaments again and establishing a “New Scotland Way”.

In 2015, Mark was succeeded by Brian McClair who worked in the role for 17 months before Malky Mackay was appointed in December 2016, tasked with implementing the strategy to transform Scottish football from grassroots level.

Performance Schools

At the heart of the Performance Strategy are the seven regional Scottish FA JD Performance Schools, which in their initial years have already started to produce high quality young players, with the likes of Billy Gilmour of Chelsea and Kieran Freeman of Southampton just two examples of players who have secured contracts at top clubs.

Fundamental to the Performance Schools are the Elite Coaches who work daily with the young players aged between 11 and 16 years old.  By ensuring that players are competing against the best players every day and receiving top class coaching, the Scottish FA estimate that these young footballers will each be getting 10,000 hours of quality ball time by the time they graduate.

Project Brave

Project Brave has attracted significant media interest and is certainly a crucial element of the overall Performance Strategy.  Working closely with the clubs since his appointment, Malky MacKay released the final plans for Project Brave in November 2017 - a landmark step in the radical overhaul of professional youth structure and funding.

Applicant clubs were graded according to a criteria-based system and an assessment of measurable performance outcomes (MPOs).  Enhanced funding for achieving MPOs will encourage best practice, with the objective of Project Brave to harness the success of the strategic plan and ensure a more efficient pathway to first-team football.

Those clubs not selected for the top tier will still have access to a level of funding from the Scottish Football Association to support the running and improvement of their academies.

Along with the Performance Schools, the new academy structure in Project Brave will have an increased focus on sport science, diet, nutrition, and sport psychology.

Player Pathway

Click on the infographic below to learn more about the Scottish FA Player Pathway:

Summary

The Performance Schools and the new Elite Academy set-up put in place by Project Brave are just two of the elements of Scotland’s Performance Strategy.  Within this section of the website, you can find out more about the coaches, facilities and ethos that is driving towards delivering a successful future for Scottish football.