U16 NIFL Squad Invitation  

As the NI Executive eases restrictions and with the IFA providing guidance on training and playing, Institute’s teams will return to training in the coming weeks.

Our U16 squad will compete in the NIFL Academy League, the highest level of football in Northern Ireland, and with it an opportunity to play the top Premiership teams in the country. 

Institute will not hold open trials for this squad.  We wrote to our local clubs earlier in the year to lay out our plan moving forward and in recent days have again spoken to a number of these clubs to invite identified players to train with the squad.  These clubs have also been eager to recommend some other players for us to consider. We’d like to thank those clubs for helping their players explore this opportunity and look forward to continuing this process with other clubs in the coming days and weeks. We plan to promote a number of our U15 players to the U16 NIFL team over the next two summers. However, we are keen to open up this opportunity for additional players from other clubs in the area.

We believe that being able to pursue a well-designed developmental pathway to first team football is, or should be, an option for any local player with the aspirations and ability to play at a higher level. As a senior club, Institute are in a unique position to offer this professional development pathway for players from U16 up.

Identifying players with the appropriate level of talent and application to benefit from that pathway is something we believe we can do more successfully by working with the junior clubs in our area. As a result, from August 2020, the youngest team Institute will field will be an U15 side, and from August 2021, that will move to U16. We firmly believe, and the research confirms, that trying to identify talent before 14/15 yrs is both virtually impossible and potentially damaging.

We are respectful of the great coaching that goes on at the various clubs across our city and beyond. We also believe it’s vital that a player completes the season with his current club before considering any potential move.

Institute will not contact any young person or their family without permission from their club.  We look forward to welcoming the new young players to our club for the U16 season beginning the week of 13/07/20. 

William Anderson Chairman

Eddie Seydak Academy Manager

Gary Fowler Youth Development Manager

Gary Fowler:

Youth Development Manager

Institute FC

075 3941 0415

youth@institutefc.co.uk