SINGAPORE — A football academy, to be launched on April 2 and led by ­ex-international striker Aleksandar Duric, will take on the role of nurturing aspiring young footballers and coaches in Singapore. 

This comes after national sports body Sport Singapore launched a new initiative called “Play it Forward” on Friday (Feb 27), which enables ­aspiring young coaches in Singapore from the age of 16 onwards to participate in a fully subsidised programme with established sports coaches in Singapore. 

They will undergo a two-week certification programme, before graduating with a grassroots coaching certificate. This will make them  eligible to coach at the ActiveSG Football Academy for one year.

The Academy will be supported by five training centres based at football stadiums across Singapore. 

Each centre will have a head coach, five assistant coaches and 10 volunteer coaching assistants produced from this programme. The Academy expects up to 1,000 kids, aged 12 and below, to sign up. 

The first intake of aspiring coaches to be accepted under this coaching programme must first be interviewed by Duric, who is the Academy principal, before embarking on the certification courses and workshops. 

They will undergo lessons in four key technical areas such as the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) grassroots coaching course and the national coaching accreditation programme, values and principles in sports education, fundamental movement skills development, and sports safety management.

“Kids need to be kids and they need to play. There are a lot of kids out there who don’t have a chance to play in the elite group that FAS is looking for, we are here to give everybody, boys and girls, the ­opportunity to play, and learn football,” said Duric, who is working closely with FAS technical ­director Michel Sablon. 

“We are already planning courses through the FAS … I am using Sablon’s syllabus for training as well.”

The FAS grassroots training course follows renewed ­interest in local football this year, with the new Great Eastern Yeo’s S.League season seeing good crowds at all its matches. To date, the ­average attendance is about 2,000, way above the ­average of 500 per game in previous seasons. 

Culture, Community and Youth Minister Grace Fu said: “Through the coaching programme that is fully-funded, they (volunteer coaching assistants) can contribute to the community, and in a way cultivate the next batch of footballers.”