The Leicestershire & Rutland County FA are delighted to announce that the Leicester City U23 Captain, Hamza Choudhury will be attending the County Youth Conference 2018 to undertake a question and answer session with those in attendance.

Hamza started in the local grassroots game in Loughborough, going on to now make one Premier League appearance for the first team along with two loans spells at Burton Albion.

Alongside Hamza, academy players Josh Knight and Simran Thandi, who started out at Fleckney and Groby respectively, will also be taking part in the session to provide an insight into the academy philosophy and environment.

Ian Cawley, Academy Manager, said “The Players and I are excited to be attending the County Youth Conference, and look forward to sharing our ways of working with the hard working grassroots volunteers in Leicestershire & Rutland. It is essential we provide great experiences for young players, at all levels of the game, and we look forward to playing our part in achieving this.”

The County Youth Conference 2018 is FREE to attend and is taking place on Tuesday 27th February at the King Power Stadium. Arrivals will be from 6:30pm, with a planned start time of 7pm, and a finish time of 9:30pm.

Due to the anticipated demand following this announcement, we have made an additional 50 spaces available at the conference, which will be allocated on first come serve basis. Deadline to book onto these additional spaces has now been extended to Monday 26th February. Each club is limited to a maximum of 3 delegates.

BOOK NOW TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!! To book your club delegates onto the conference please CLICK HERE

Further to communication over the past few weeks, this year’s conference will have a theme around creating a player centred environment and will include the following sessions;

• Leicester City Academy Manager, Ian Cawley, will provide an insight on how they implement a Player Centred Philosophy in the Academy Environment.

• John Folwell, The FA Football Participation Manager (Youth) and Nathan French, The FA National Respect Project Manager will be presenting at the conference to provide an insight on national thinking about the future direction of the respect programme and the structure of Youth Football.

• All leagues will be engaging with clubs on some key development areas, which will provide delegate the opportunity to really start shaping the future of local youth football.

In addition to this, there will be plenty of networking and engagement opportunities with FA and County FA staff, leagues, clubs and Vessey Discount Football Kits , the County’s official Nike Retail Partner.

This conference is the first major event as part of the Leicestershire & Rutland Respect Week of Action, which is taking place between 24th February – 4th March 2018. The Week of Action, along with the conference, will have a focus on educating all stakeholders in the game; County FA, Leagues, Club, Coaches and Parents, on how they can #PlayYourPart in Creating a Player Centred Environment for young players. 

We will be making further announcements about the Leicestershire & Rutland Respect Week of Action shortly, but in the meantime please click here for more information.

Creating a Player Centred Environment in Youth Football starts with you, and we invite you to #PlayYourPart