The Bulgarian Football Union and the international consulting company Double Pass presented the results of the first comprehensive ecosystem analysis of the development of football talents in Bulgaria – a key stage of the strategic project Mission Talent, which lays the foundations for a long-term national policy for the development of young football players.
The analysis covers all the main components of the system – from the identification of talents and the work of academies to the transition to professional football and national teams. The conclusion is categorical - Bulgaria has talented young footballers, but the system still fails to provide them with sufficient opportunities for development and realization, the Bulgarian Football Union writes on its website.
One of the most significant conclusions shows that footballers under 21 receive only 12% of playing time in the Bulgarian elite - the lowest share among the countries used for comparison. At the same time, young players make up about 22% of registered footballers, which means that they are present in the club squads, but rarely get a real chance to appear in official matches. It is this gap between the available talent and the opportunities for development that has been identified as one of the most serious challenges facing Bulgarian football.
The study also reports that the clubs' transfer policy is mainly aimed at attracting already established footballers. Only about 5% of newly recruited players in the First League are under 20 years old, and nearly three-quarters are over 23 years old. According to experts, this limits the opportunities for developing their own players and reduces the potential for creating future transfer value.
The report also shows that Bulgaria is a net importer of football players, with a significant portion of foreign players coming from Brazil, Portugal and African countries. This further reduces playing time for young Bulgarian players. At the same time, talents that develop in Bulgaria most often move to championships with a similar or lower sporting level, instead of to the leading European leagues.
Based on the analysis carried out, Double Pass identified 125 mechanisms for improving the talent development system, with 24 of them identified as priorities for short- and medium-term implementation. They cover all key areas – building a national talent identification system, a unified football philosophy, modernizing academies, improving the transition to professional football, developing human resources, implementing digital technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as creating a unified process management strategy.
After completing the analytical phase, the Mission Talent project moves to practical implementation through two strategic projects. The first will introduce a national quality and certification program for football academies, which will define uniform standards for the development of young football players and will support the academies in the process of their improvement. The second will analyze and optimize the development path of football players from the youth national teams to the representative team of Bulgaria, so that the transition between the individual age categories is more consistent and effective.
The main goal of the project is for the Bulgarian Football Union, clubs, academies and national teams to work on a common model for talent development, based on measurable indicators, long-term planning and annual monitoring of results. Thus, Bulgarian football will have an objective basis for assessing progress and a tool for consistently improving the quality of the system for developing young football players.
For a long time, we talked mainly about the problems. Today, we are talking with data, analysis and solutions. This is the first real starting point for the long-term development of Bulgarian football, the BFU pointed out.