Newcastle Jets chief executive Lawrie McKinna says new $500-a-head, 20-week junior coaching clinics, to be held twice a year, would improve the club's talent identification.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Jets last week announced the skills program, which is open to all players from under 8s to under 16s and will be held Monday and Wednesday evenings at University No.2 Oval during school weeks from the start of term three.
For $500, players will train under Jets coaches one hour each week and receive a shirt, sweater, shorts and socks as well as a three-game general admission club membership to the next A-League/W-League season.
McKinna said Jets players would take part in the clinics and the club was looking to do two of the 20-week programs each year.
"We think it's great value," McKinna said.
"The kids get a full Jets kit, a three-game membership and they'll get coached by our coaches. And it's an identification process to get into our academy.
"It's open to everybody and once we've got them up and going, hopefully we'll have a couple of different levels.
"We'll be sending some players down most nights as well.
"They enjoy it and over the last few years we've ramped up more and more things in the community."
The initiative comes as the Jets look for investors and to streamline operations amid owner Martin Lee's business challenges in China. The Jets, who lost $2.2 million last season, are aiming to become a break-even operation.
McKinna said the club had been working on the skills program for a long time and "it was just about the right time and getting the right staff to do it with".
"The best ones will stick out and be identified and we might put on free holiday clinics for those ones," he said.
"Those are things we are looking at, depending on numbers, especially for those academy age groups.
"It's not all going to be about getting money off them.
"We're getting money because we have to pay coaches, hire the grounds and buy the gear."
McKinna said the club had held only holiday clinics so far in his three-year tenure.
Those one-day, $90 school holiday clinics, next to be held at Lambton and Nelson Bay in July and also featuring Jets players, were being expanded as part of the club's community engagement program.
"There's a revenue stream there but it's actually about kids who will potentially come to games," he said.
"Last year, figures to FFA were that 40-odd per cent of kids who play football, the young ones, don't actually have an A-League club they support.
"It's another way of engaging. It's another way of community involvement."