AIFF announces Academy accreditation 2025-26 rules and regulations

New Delhi, [India], May 26 : The All India Football Federation has announced the AIFF Academy Accreditation Rules and Regulations for the 2025-26 season.

The Academy Accreditation application window is now open, with the deadline set for June 10, 2025. Interested academies may apply through the Academy Accreditation application portal that may be accessed through the Centralised Registration System (CRS), a AIFF release said.

The academies will be graded based on their fulfilment of the checklist that is available on the AIFF Academy Accreditations 2025-26 Rules and Regulations document, which may be accessed by clicking here. Based on the gradation, each academy will be given a star rating.

An academy wishing to be eligible for elite academy accreditation would have to complete a minimum nine-point checklist for passing the Academy Accreditations with a one-star rating. Further excellence ratings ranging from two to five stars would be granted on the gradation system in each category.

Academies that fail to meet the minimum nine-point checklist but wish to still be formally recognised through the AIFF Academy Accreditation process will have a 'Basic Accreditation' category assigned to them, which will be launched after the completion of the first round of Elite Academy Accreditation.

As part of the latest initiative to align the academies across the country, along with the AIFF's Vision 2047 plan, it is mandatory for every academy to introduce a child safeguarding policy.

While a more inclusive approach has been taken in order to inculcate more junior academies into the national level, a merit-based gradation system has been introduced to ensure functionality within the larger framework of Indian football. Moving into the next phase of development of the academy ecosystem, excellence rewards are being introduced for the top academies.

Parameters have been introduced to incentivise the academies' performance in the national leagues, the number of players that eventually end up playing for the India U17 youth teams, or get selected in the elite AIFF-FIFA TDS Academy system.

Ensuring the academies become the catalysts of football at a hyper-local level, academies are being rewarded for long-term grassroots leagues. The academies would now also be incentivised with points for the number of local players present in their teams, alongside long-term player development bonuses.

In an attempt to be more inclusive to younger academies, the minimum level of coaching license required for coaches hired by the academies has been reduced from an A license to a C license for head coach, and from B license to D license for an assistant coach as well as making the Head of Youth development non-mandatory. Gradation points have also been introduced for registered strength and conditioning coaches, mental conditioning coaches, nutritionists, and sports scientists, keeping up with the evolving demands of modern football.

Women's football and general female participation within the ecosystem have been incentivised with points awarded for involvement of girls within the grassroots leagues, the number of girls' youth teams registered as well as the number of female staff within the academies' administrative structure.

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