Olé Football Academy’s South Island Hub is Expanding
In 2021 Olé Football Academy partnered with Wānaka AFC to create the Olé x Wānaka AFC Academy.
Fast forward to present day and we have a curriculum in place within the Wānaka Club and community which is now looking after 120 players, ages 8-16yrs across 6 programmes. Full time Head Coaches from Olé Football Academy are Blair Scoullar and Thomas van Hees, with Goalkeeping Coach Josh Shackleton and Youth Coach Jack Lanigan. This is a fantastic opportunity for players from the Wānaka Club and the region to be a part of the Olé system which allows players to train and develop under full-time coaches for 10 months of the year.
In mid November, Coach Blair Scoullar brought 12 young players up to the Wellington Academy for a week’s football training and experience – where they ate, slept and trained with various Wellington Coaches and also trained in their age groups in the evenings. The experience was a fantastic opportunity for them to test themselves against their fellow players and further strengthen the partnership between Olé Football Academy and Wānaka AFC.
The Wānaka hub is now looking to expand and develop key relationships with Mt Aspiring High School in the future to attract players from outside the region to be able to go to school and train in the Olé x Wānaka Academy. Wānaka AFC have teams in key spaces to allow our players to develop and progress with a U15 YDL side in the Football South Competition and the Wānaka AFC Mens 1st Team being highly competitive in the Southern Premiership League (SPL) with aspirations on promotion to the SIL for 2024.
Wānaka has always had a reputation for developing and training world class athletes in Multi Sport & Snow Sports and has produced multiple medal winning Olympians in recent years – partly due to their world class training facilities and infrastructure. Olé FA is now turning heads and changing rivers in the south in a very positive way.
