AFC Bournemouth is pleased to reveal that a partnership has been agreed between the academy and New Forest Football Academy (NFFA).
NFFA operates in the New Forest, Bournemouth and Southampton areas and is a football academy for three to 12-year-olds.
With a complete football pathway, the football academy is able to welcome complete beginners at entry level right the way through to their elite development centres.
Speaking on NFFA, academy head of recruitment Josh Dorlikar explained: “They’re a private academy based in the New Forest and they’ve got a really big presence there.
“I joined the club coming up to five years ago now and even before that we had a relationship with them.
“Previously, we had that link about three or four years ago and because of Covid, that relationship died down a bit.
“We got back in contact and met at the beginning of January to have a discussion about how we could potentially work together.
“We thought the best way of doing that was reforming an official link between the two organisations.”
Dorlikar also felt that the link between the academy and NFFA will see both sides of the partnership benefit.
He said: “It was almost a no-brainer because both organisations will mutually benefit.
“We know that they have really good people on their staff, and they are really good at what they do. We can trust them as an organisation to represent the club in a good way.
“In the previous link and when we didn’t have a partnership, we had a number of their boys sign in the academy.
“So, again, it was a no-brainer because we’ve had so many boys come into the academy from New Forest Football Academy.
“Forming that official link just ties things up really nicely.”
