International students

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To summarise, from what we hear and understand, footballers in many countries around the world aren’t able to experience the elite coaching, facilities, analysis, psychology, physiology etc to reach the highest levels required to become professional. 

By coming to the UK, where football is taken very seriously, you have that chance to receive all of this and fulfil your potential. By achieving this potential, you may well get to a level where you are able to represent your country or go into professional leagues in Europe or at home, which in turn opens doors to the UK professional game. We can recommend the very best football and education programmes, the best schools for football in the UK and offer free football advice for those who are serious about one day, possibly playing at Old Trafford, Anfield or The Emirates!

 

At the very least, you would be able to look back in the future and know you did everything you could.

Okay, so you have been told, read and heard many times that you are unable to come to England to play professional football. However, you see the likes of Mohammed Salah, Tim Cahill and Park Ji-Sung amongst hundreds of other Non-UK footballers, playing for huge English clubs. So how does this happen!?

We work tirelessly to keep up with the current immigration and footballing laws, so we can advise to the best of our knowledge. Firstly, it is true that without the correct papers, you can’t be scouted, or signed by a professional football club in the UK, however, there are many different ‘loopholes’ and lengths that football clubs will go to, to sign that perfect player for there club. It really is a minefield!

Let us begin with the youngsters, as laws change when a player becomes older. In England, if you are aged under 16 years old, you must live within a certain time frame of a football club to be able to sign and represent that club's academy team.

The current FA law is that; • Under 12’s must live within 1 hour (60 minutes) of the football club • Under 16’s must live within 1 hour and a half (90 minutes) of the football club This means for overseas players, it is extremely difficult to be signed for a professional club, so unless you are exceptional (at a level where you are not only representing your country at youth international level but are one of the best in your nation), it is next to impossible.

However, players can come to the UK on different visas, live here, be scouted and train for a professional academy.

The most popular visas we have come across are either a ‘Tier 4 Child’ visa or a ‘Tier 2 Dependent’ visa. Here is a little about them both;

• Tier 4 Child Visa – staying on youngsters, this visa is granted to those up to 17 years old and is a study visa. This visa is granted for those coming to the UK to board in a Independent School (not a state funded school), amongst other eligibility requirements, such as being able to demonstrate enough money to cover course fees and living costs.

• Tier 2 Dependent Visa – your parent/s have been granted a Tier 2 Visa in the UK and the child is coming as a dependent. A Tier 2 visa is granted to adults, who are known as ‘skilled workers’ and are coming to the UK to work for a company who will (and can) sponsor the visa. For example, a footballer’s children.

Again, young footballers can’t sign for professional football clubs on these visas, and those training within professional football academies are there because the clubs know that one day, they may be eligible to sign them (for example, after a number of years, people who have lived in the UK can become citizens).