England and Manchester City Defender Kyle Walker, 33, has partnered with The Sheffield College to launch a brand new academy in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walker who grew up locally in the Sharrow suburb said: \u201cit’s about me giving back to the city that means so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sheffield College will provide footballing and educational opportunities for young people aged 16-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Footballing academies in the UK have become synonymous with leaving talented young people lost with low-levels of qualifications once they are released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is estimated that there are around 1.5 millions players who are part of organised Youth Football in England at any one time; yet only 0.012% make it as a Premier League level professional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new academy branded the \u2018KW2 Academy\u2019 aims to give young footballers a \u201csecond chance\u201d in Sheffield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Applications for the academy opened up on Monday, 11th of March, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Academy\u2019s inaugural year there will be 40 spaces available for young footballers, who are not signed up professionally, to continue following their dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The academy will hold training sessions three times a week utilising the brand new facilities at the College\u2019s Hillsborough campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The England international appreciated the hardships and the near impossible chances of young athletes making it professional; he said; \u201cIf one player makes it then I’ve done my job\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the second time that an England international has taken positive action against the poor structural processes of the academy systems in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walker\u2019s England teammate, Trent Alexander-Arnold launched \u2018The After Academy\u2019 to aid young footballers who don’t make it professionally to access employment opportunities after being released from academies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This announcement comes at a time when rumours are circulating Walker’s future prospects, with the Defender indicating a return to his boyhood club Sheffield United.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walker said: \u201cI have dreams that I’d like to fulfil. I’ve been very open about saying I want to finish my career at Sheffield United\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walker\u2019s decision to open up this foundation at this period hints that a move back to the Steel City is imminent for the 33 year old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
England and Manchester City Defender Kyle Walker, 33, has partnered with The Sheffield College to launch a brand new academy in the city. Walker who grew up locally in the Sharrow suburb said: \u201cit’s about me giving back to the city that means so much more.\u201d The Sheffield College will provide footballing and educational opportunities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,49,50,52],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-football-academy","tag-kyle-walker","tag-sharrow","tag-sheffield-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}