Idman.biz
"During the opening meeting, clubs were introduced to the innovations made to the club licensing rules."
Idman.Biz reports that Seymur Salimli, Head of the Licensing and Registration Department of AFFA, said this in an interview with the AFFA press service.
We present that interview.
- What is the latest situation in the club licensing process?
- The official start of the club licensing process is carried out with an opening meeting. The mentioned meeting took place on October 16 last year. Until the end of October, clubs submitted their relevant applications to the Licensing Department, according to the type of license they applied for. At the same time, the Club Licensing Rules were prepared and submitted to the clubs by us.
- Have any innovations been applied in the 2026/2027 licensing season?
- This can be considered an innovation in a certain sense. Since the club licensing process is one of the main mechanisms that serves to increase the professionalism of clubs, the scope of this process has been expanded. According to the decision of the AFFA Executive Committee dated October 25, 2025, from the current football year, all clubs of the II League, as well as teams applying for the II League license type from the Regional League and reaching the 1/4 final stage of the Regional League, will be involved in the licensing process. This means that clubs wishing to participate in the II League in the 2026/2027 season must obtain the relevant license in the current season.
- In which specific stage is the licensing process currently?
- During the opening meeting, clubs were introduced to the innovations made to the licensing rules. In parallel, training and trainings on the rules were organized. These trainings were held both at AFFA and in the clubs' offices - in Baku and regions, according to the clubs' choice. All trainings ended on December 25. Some experienced clubs, while participating in the trainings, have already joined the process and entered their documents into the Club Licensing Platform. Other clubs moved to this stage after the trainings. Currently, the process is at the stage of mandatory submission of documents by the clubs.
- What can you say about the monitoring stage of compliance with the requirements in the licensing process?
- Based on the submitted documents, the compliance of license applicants with the requirements is regularly checked, and close cooperation is established with the clubs within this process. AFFA has launched the "Needs Analysis and Support Process for the Development of Academies within the Framework of Club Licensing". In the initial stage, online meetings were held with the Premier League and I League clubs, and the development needs of the academies, increasing compliance with the requirements, and mechanisms of methodological support were discussed in these meetings.
In the next stage, on-site inspections of the clubs' academies were carried out by the coach-coordinator of the Licensing and Registration Department, Sarkhan Huseynov. During the visits, the current situation was assessed, the coaching staff, medical staff, infrastructure, training processes for all age groups, as well as the activities of SMM and legal teams were analyzed, and relevant recommendations were presented to the clubs. These measures are important steps aimed at continuous support of AFFA for the development of academies and further improvement of the licensing process.
- How would you evaluate these measures in terms of quality and quantity in general?
- If the number of license applicants in the club licensing process last season was 41, the number of clubs applying for the 2026/27 season has reached approximately 54. This is a significant increase in quantity. It can be noted that the clubs participating in the process become more experienced from year to year and better understand the seriousness of the requirements. On-site analysis and monitoring make the gradual transformation of this quantitative increase into quality inevitable.
