Everton have strengthened their partnership with Australian side Joondalup City following a visit down under by club coaches ahead of the Blues’ first team trip to compete in the Sydney Super Cup next month. Frank Lampard’s side will face Scottish Premiership champions Celtic on Sunday, November 20 before taking on local outfit Western Sydney Wanderers on Wednesday, November 23.
Prior to that visit though, a three-strong team of coaches, led by International Academy Technical Lead and Academy Coach Paddy Byrne, flew to Perth to help coach Joondalup’s youngsters and view their recruitment programme.
Byrne explained: “There is a strong British population in Perth and a strong Scouse population, with a lot of Evertonians (former Blues stalwart Mick Lyons also lives in the area). This visit is probably over two years later than we would have liked, due to the fact we couldn’t travel, and I’ve spent hours on calls with their coaches over the past few years, so being able to finally go and meet them, make it more personal and build the relationship was wonderful and really beneficial.
“We’ve helped to shape their coaching programme and deliver masterclasses and the visit enabled us to have sit-down conversations about what works best for them as a club.”
Joondalup, a non-profit community-based sports organisation founded in 1989, aimed at fostering and developing the game of football at all levels, now has more than 750 players based in a modern sports complex, and were the first to join Everton’s International Academy Affiliate Club programme, which was launched back in 2020 to expand the knowledge and expertise of Everton’s player development processes to affiliated youth football clubs across the world.
The programme has expanded and now has clubs in to nine clubs in the US, Canada, South America, Australia and Ireland. However, until now the global coronavirus pandemic had put on hold any plans for the clubs to meet up and build on their burgeoning relationship.
Byrne added: “Their season has just finished and they are now in the recruitment phase for next season, so they were holding a lot of trials for their U13, U14, U15 and U16s teams, and we were able to oversee that and see how a like-minded club runs the process. Joondalup have made it clear that they want to extend the affiliation, so that’s encouraging and the really big thing now would be for them to come and visit us.”
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Byrne and his team expect to make more international trips as the International Academy and its Affiliate Programme continues to evolve. The range of programmes are built on the foundations of Everton’s rich history of footballing excellence, to provide the highest quality technical coaching and education, player performance and development pathways, along with a range of additional support for our affiliated club partners.
He said: “We are there to support our affiliate clubs, whether you are a club playing at the highest level or your country’s league in a professional format, or the bottom of your pyramid. We’re affiliated with like-minded clubs.
“We want to work with clubs with a family feel who are also ambitious, whether that’s the growth of their programmes or just developing players to the maximum, by partnering with a club that has a rich history in developing young talent that has gone on to play in the Premier League and international football. Our programme is not a one-size fits all.
“We work with clubs operating at grass roots level, right up to professional clubs competing in the Europa League. Hopefully we bring a great benefit to these clubs and the programme also supports our international strategy – directly engaging soccer fans in strong soccer communities”
Click here to find out more about Everton’s International Academy Affiliate Programme.
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