SAF (Serious About FIFA) Global Gaming have announced they are launching their own esports academy within FIFA esports.
Tommy Mackie is the first UK player to join the academy team. Having recently turned 15 years old, he has already achieved multiple top 200 finishes in the FIFA Weekend League and has had several 30-0 weekends. SAF say he ‘could have a very bright future in FIFA esports with the guidance of SAF’.
The SAF FIFA academy will allow SAF to identify FIFA players who are not yet eligible to play in FIFA Global Series (FGS) events at an early age and help develop them, guiding them into future esports when eligible.
The news comes after SAF ended their partnership with Revolution Esports to develop UK FIFA talent.
The SAF coaching team will apply a similar process to traditional sports clubs in developing FIFA talent. Academy players will undergo a regime to help them identify and improve areas, in terms of their FIFA and personal skills, to mould them into an all-round esports athlete.
SAF say they will work closely with players’ parents to ensure that players are achieving academic results, receive mentoring around mental health and have a safe environment to hone their skills and learn.
“As more brands look to enter the esports space, we feel that it’s vital for our players to understand the importance of creating their own brand within SAF and the wider FIFA esports ecosystem. The SAF academy will be an important part of our organisation’s ability to create esports stars of the future.”
Craig Winfield, SAF Global Gaming
The academy players will have access to the SAF FIFA trading team, which will ‘allow players to trade effectively, minimising the need for huge spend within the game’.
Within the SAF esports team, four players qualified for this year’s ePremier League representing Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Aston Villa respectively.
Aston Villa player Cameron is currently helping to deliver a three-part content series on behalf of the Premier League club. Meanwhile, SAF player Stingray recently played against Liverpool player and keen FIFA player Diego Jota.
“The potential for the academy players to progress to these type of activations is key to their development and is something that SAF can facilitate,” SAF said in a press release.
SAF also have three players qualified for the FGS playoffs, with hopefully a fourth joining them to play for a chance to play in the FIFAe World Cup.
Players will also receive guidance from the SAF content creation team to help them grow their own fanbase and secondary income via stream revenue and eventually affiliate partners and sponsors.
SAF esports Manager Jon Jarvis stated: “I am delighted to announce our esports academy team, it has been something we have planned to do since I joined SAF over 18 months ago.
“Having spoken to Tommy and his family about our intentions for the academy, we have found a player that matches our ethos, and we are delighted to be able to work with the next generation of FIFA players.”
Partnerships manager Craig Winfield added: “As more brands look to enter the esports space, we feel that it’s vital for our players to understand the importance of creating their own brand within SAF and the wider FIFA esports ecosystem. The SAF academy will be an important part of our organisation’s ability to create esports stars of the future.”
SAF have a network of more than 500,000 followers across various social media and streaming platforms within gaming and esports. This allows them to run global talent searches via tournaments both online and in-person. They say they’re focused on building an org from the grassroots, ‘with sustainability and responsibility’ at the core of everything they do.
The SAF content team have delivered more than 6m media views in the last 30 days, with streamer itsCoryB recently appearing in an EA Sports broadcast event. Several SAF content creators have grown from relatively small streamers to Twitch and Facebook Gaming partners since joining the org.
Related article: Was this UK FIFA player’s 1-year ban fair? ‘To have all this hard work taken away from me without any proof or communication left me in tears’
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
