Cooperation agreement with Brechin City

Dundee Football Club are pleased to announce that we have entered into a cooperation agreement with Brechin City of the Highland League.

The introduction of the new cooperation system comes into place as a result of the findings from the Scottish Football Association’s research into the development of young, homegrown players in Scotland.

One of the areas the Transition Report looked into was the number of players under 21 playing for Scottish Premiership clubs in the 23/24 season. Of the 12 Premiership clubs, Dundee FC was top with the number of minutes played by players under 21 and was the only Scottish club that achieved more than 3,000 minutes, reaching 3,538 minutes.

All of the findings can be found in the 2024 Transition Report, which can be viewed here.

One key issue the report identified was that players aged 16 to 21 were not being given enough opportunities to gain match experience and progress in their careers.

In response, the new cooperation system has been designed to address this issue. It allows young Scottish players to go out on loan to a club while maintaining the flexibility to move back and forth between their parent club and the loan club during the season.

Speaking on the cooperation agreement, Scott Robertson – Head of Football Development at Dundee Football Club – said, “We are so happy to collaborate with Brechin City and to enter into this partnership with them. They are a fantastic club with great people in the building and are ambitious to return to the SPFL.

We feel that the opportunity for some of our players to gain valuable experience at this level can only benefit them. In recent years, we have had some of our younger players out on loan at Brechin, and they have all returned better players for their experience at Glebe Park.

We are excited about this partnership and to continue to develop our younger players together.”