Introduction Top football is provided with constantly changing requirements, which has led to an increased professionalization of younger players. National plans for payer development have been revised or created to meet these conditions. A major change in Norwegian football came in 2017 with the Academy Classification Model (ACM), a new national plan introduced and developed by the Norwegian Top Football, the interest organization of the clubs in the two top divisions in Norway. The model aims to improve football by developing more quality players within the top clubs. Research on player development is vast; however, few studies include an analysis of national plans. This study aims to explore the ACM documents through a pedagogical lens, and in specific using sports pedagogical models as a framework. Such models consist of special characteristics to ensure learning outcomes. For example, the model must prescribe some specific `non-negotiable` features that make it distinctive. It must leave enough space for local adaption, which is vital to successful sustainable practice, and the content should be based on an explicit knowledge base and values. Research has also pointed at the need for more studies regarding ethics and values within the domain of talent development, which include looking at national documents at the macro-level. The research question illuminated; What are the value and knowledge base of the ACM, the basic characteristics, and the strategies needed to develop talented football players? Method A document analysis was conducted by closely reading seven texts connected to the ACM, containing the models background and the requirements for different classification levels. A hermeneutic approach was used to analyze the texts, and to ensure trustworthiness, all authors participated in the analysis work. Results and discussion The ACM represents tools and transparent standards for working with player development. In specific, the model consists of eleven areas, each area containing objective goals and criteria to be benchmarked. Of the eleven areas, three are threshold areas on which every club is assessed. There is no room for compromise in these areas, which can be linked to the non-negotiable features of the sports model framework. The remaining areas also release points, and how many the clubs get in total determines the classification level and the incentives provided. Despite the models detailed characteristics, there is room for local adaptation for player development, which is vital to succeeding within a sports model framework. The knowledge base and values are not explicit in the ACM apart from a few exceptions. This study can contribute to policymaking, especially regarding designing documents aimed at young players. Using a sports pedagogical framework is also a new approach to analyzing these documents, which seems beneficial when also including value questions.
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