As they do every year, the FFF and the LFP have ranked all of French football’s youth academies, and, having come 16th in the previous campaign’s rankings – which included the development centres of every club in Ligue 1, Ligue 2 and National 1 – OGC Nice’s academy has made it into the top ten for the 2024–2025 season by climbing up into ninth place.

This result is thanks to a great deal of hard work as well as a number of strategic guidelines set out by the club’s senior management and then implemented on a daily basis by its academy staff.

Symbolised by the success of Evann Guessand – who was named as this year’s Aiglon of the Season – of Tom Louchet and of Antoine Mendy as well as Djibril Coulibaly signing his first professional contract last month, Nice’s academy is at the heart of the club’s development prospects, with a clear aim ahead of it: to break into the top six academies in this ranking, which is based on the centres’ efficiency, as defined by the following five criteria:

• Professionalisation (the number of professional contracts signed)

• Playing time with the first team of the club in question, in cumulative minutes for clubs possessing a UEFA coefficient (the academy’s impact on the professional squad)

• International call-ups (the level of representation for the academy’s players in international competitions, regardless of the nation)

• Education (the diploma(s) received by the academy’s players)

• European representation (the level of representation for the academy’s players in UEFA’s rankings)

It is worth noting that OGC Nice obtained the highest possible score of five stars in two categories: education and international call-ups.

---