Talking a Different Pathway (Brent Hills interview)

Brent Hills, who heads the FA’s Elite Performance Unit and was Hope Powell’s assistant from 2002, sets out the reasoning behind the Regional Talent Club restructure. The FA works to a plan, do and review model, he says, and with the sport due to expand over the next decade this was the moment to reorganise; the three tiers allow clubs to move up or down according to what they can actually deliver. He stresses this is a talent programme, not a participation programme, that fixtures will be regionalised to avoid long journeys, and that dual careers matter because most girls will not earn a living from football. He wants to expand a promising mixed-football pilot with boys’ academies.