A group of 18 young Seychellois male footballers, between the ages of 15 to 16, will travel to Marseille, France, on Sunday to train and play alongside top French teams, including Olympique Marseille.

This is part of FIFA's Talent Development Scheme to help member associations reach their potential by ensuring that every talent can be detected and developed.

Speaking to this SNA earlier this week, the technical director of the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF), Osama Haroun, explained that in this camp, the young players will undertake high level training enabling them to improve their skills. It will also showcase their talents and could even lead to chances of being signed by professional clubs.

"The young players will have 27 training sessions and six friendly matches over 36 days, meaning it will be very intense," said Haroun, and added that each player has been evaluated and will have training catered especially to them.

The players in the group were born between 2009/2010, which was the criteria set by FIFA.

Haroun explained that over 30 players were considered for selection and only the very best from each position were selected to attend the camp.

"They are players with very good quality, but due to budget constraints, we were only able to select 18 players, where they were tested on control, speed, ball control and what we call a motivational test, to ensure they can handle the intense training they will do in France," he added.

Arsenal FC legend, Arsene Wenger, is the head of the Talent Development Programme. The operational cycle has been designed to provide member associations with resources in talent development and high performance in the form of consultancy services over the period 2023-2026, custom-made.

Since April 2023, member associations can apply every year to participate in the programme.

The main mission of the FIFA Talent Development Programme is to invest in academies. The goal is that by 2026, each member association will have at least one academy or centre of excellence. It will also be used to support national teams, talent identification, high-level coaches and structured competitions.