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Our Story

At Elite Performance Academy we provide Elite Level coaching to players of all ages and abilities. As the Premier Private Technical Football Specialists in the UK, we pride ourselves on the high standards we set, as we challenge all of our players to push the boundaries of their own ability, in order to maximise their potential.

Through our extensive links across all levels of the football pyramid, we also provide

players with a realistic and clear pathway to the next level of their game.

The Journey to Elite Level

Finding a coach and a coaching programme you can trust in, doesn’t happen overnight. Our pathway is built around a player-centred approach.

All sessions are age and stage appropriate and are delivered in a high paced, energetic, positive environment that encourage players to be creative and effective decision makers, who are technically confident in possession and tactically aware out of possession.

Creating an Elite Player

Each individual or small group session is designed with the utmost precision, in order to engage and challenge each players technical ability and tactical understanding.

Across all of our session pathways, we work to create a foundation for players that allows them to develop a lifelong love of the game.

Elite Performance Academy Girls Football

Empowering Players

Creating positive players, who are creative thinkers and effective decision makers, is especially important for us, as our philosophy is built around players who learn to:

TRAIN WITH NO EXCUSES PLAY WITH NO FEAR

How we got here

After over 14 years working in the elite game and seeing frustrated players released from the academy system at all levels and across all age groups due to a lack of technical ability and efficiency, future head coach and founder of Elite Performance Academy, Michael Challoner, believed it was time for a change of approach to player development.

It was time to provide a personalised player centred coaching experience with a philosophy that focused on developing players ball mastery skills, individual creativity, and the development of tactical awareness.

Head Coach/Founder

Head coach and founder Michael Challoner is from Manchester and has experienced many valuable lessons from the game of football. Like most players he works with today Michael started out as an ambitious, aspiring professional footballer himself. After being picked up by Bolton Wanderers at an early age, he spent the next 7 years playing in the highly competitive UK academy system.

By the age of 19, Michael was a UEFA qualified coach and working at Manchester United. Michael ignited his passion for technical development and ball mastery early in his career after working closely with Manchester United’s skills development and 1st team coach Rene Meulensteen.

Michael spent the next 14 years coaching teams and 1on1 player development sessions in the UK Premier League academy system at Manchester United and Burnley. With additional experiences coaching for Nike in the UK and America and also for Manchester United in Hong Kong and Australia.

After returning from working for Manchester United in Asia for 2 years Michael took up a new coaching role at Burnley FC. It was at this time that Michael decided that he needed to make a change in his career direction and in 2010, Elite Performance Academy was formed.

Since 2010 Elite Performance Academy have gone on to support the development of some of the most exciting youngsters coming through into the game today: