EPPP and Academy Indoor-Training Requirements
If your club runs an academy, the Elite Player Performance Plan shapes almost every facilities decision you make. It determines what you must provide, how it is assessed, and what your category status – and the funding and games programme that come with it – depends on.
This guide explains the regulation: what the EPPP is, how the four academy categories work, what each category expects in indoor training provision, and how the audit and recategorisation system operates.
Academy managers, heads of academy operations, facility leads and club executives at professional clubs – and anyone preparing for categorisation or recategorisation. For the practical side of building and running a covered facility, see our guide to covering football training grounds.
What is the EPPP?
The Elite Player Performance Plan is English football’s long-term youth development strategy, introduced by the Premier League in 2012 with The FA and the Football League. Its purpose is to produce more and better homegrown players by raising the standard of coaching, education, player care and facilities across every academy in the professional game.
It has driven extraordinary investment: more than £1 billion has been spent on academy infrastructure since the EPPP began, and the indoor training space has become the centrepiece of the modern academy – the facility that guarantees the coaching programme happens in full, every week of the season.
The Four Academy Categories
Every academy is licensed in one of four categories, with Category 1 the highest. A club’s category is not self-declared – it is earned through independent audit against the Youth Development Rules, covering leadership and management, coaching, education, player care, productivity and facilities.
Category status matters because it determines central funding, the age ranges an academy can operate, access to the elite games programme, and the compensation framework for registered players. Category 1 carries the most demanding requirements – substantial full-time staffing and operating budgets measured in millions – and around 29 clubs held Category 1 status for the 2025/26 season.
Indoor Facility Requirements by Category
Facilities are one of the audited standards, and indoor training provision is where the categories separate most sharply. In broad terms, the expectations look like this – the Youth Development Rules and your league’s facility guidance set the precise detail:
| Category | Indoor training expectation |
|---|---|
| Category 1 | Permanent indoor training provision at the academy as standard – an indoor pitch is the centrepiece of the modern Category 1 training ground |
| Category 2 | Dedicated indoor provision with guaranteed availability for the coaching programme |
| Category 3 | Guaranteed indoor access through the winter months (typically November to April) – secured access can satisfy the requirement |
| Category 4 | Access to hirable indoor space appropriate to a scholarship-age programme |
Two themes run through the requirements at every level. First, guarantee: provision must be reliable, not weather-dependent or subject to someone else’s booking sheet. Second, quality: indoor surfaces are expected to support the same football the academy coaches outdoors, which is why full-size or near-full-size artificial surfaces – increasingly GPS-compatible for sports-science continuity – have become the norm at the top categories.
Audits and Recategorisation
Compliance is independently assessed by the Professional Game Academy Audit Company (PGAAC), established in 2018 by the Premier League, the EFL and The FA to bring quality assurance in-house for the professional game.
The system works on two levels. Every academy is audited each season to confirm it is safe to operate and compliant with the Youth Development Rules. On top of that, full assessments run on a rolling multi-year cycle, with category licences awarded for up to three years. Auditors visit, grade each discipline, and recommend the category the academy has evidenced.
Recategorisation is real, in both directions: academies have been upgraded – and demoted – on the strength of their audits. A facilities shortfall is one of the risks to category status, and with it the funding, games programme and recruiting position that status protects.
What It Means for Clubs
- Indoor provision is structural, not optional. Above the entry categories, an academy without guaranteed indoor training is carrying an audit risk every winter.
- Contact hours are commitments. The EPPP is built on guaranteed coaching time; weather-disrupted programmes undermine the core promise an academy makes to its players and to the auditors.
- Status compounds. Category drives funding, fixtures and recruitment – families weigh facilities when choosing where a player signs.
- The bar keeps rising. As the women’s and girls’ game professionalises, the same infrastructure logic is extending across club programmes.
Meeting the Indoor Requirement
The traditional answer – a steel-framed indoor hall – delivers the requirement, but at a capital cost and on a build programme that puts it out of reach for many clubs outside the elite. The covered-pitch route changes that equation: an air dome over a full-size or near-full-size artificial surface delivers guaranteed, audit-ready indoor training in a fraction of the time and cost of a conventional building, with planning advantages that come from a reversible structure. Our comparison of air domes versus traditional buildings sets out the trade-offs, and our air dome cost guide covers budgets.
It is also the route the professional game has already taken: Premier League and EFL clubs including Watford and Southampton train year-round under Covair domes, with GPS-compatible surfaces and professional-standard lighting. See how a dome fits a football programme on our football domes page.
Next Steps
- Map your requirement: confirm what your current and target category expects in indoor provision.
- Audit your risk: if your winter programme depends on hired or weather-exposed space, quantify the sessions at risk.
- Book a site assessment: we will confirm what your training ground can accommodate and the realistic programme to deliver it.
- Plan around the audit calendar: facilities decisions land best when they are evidenced before assessment, not promised during it.
The EPPP made indoor training part of the regulatory fabric of academy football. For clubs, the question is no longer whether to provide it, but how to provide it well – and affordably.
About Covair Structures
Covair Structures Ltd has over 40 years’ experience in sports facility coverings and 200+ installations across the UK. We work with football clubs at every level, from grassroots community organisations to Premier League academies, providing seasonal domes, permanent DUOL domes, and framed fabric structures.
