Managing director Ian Milne has confirmed that Town’s Academy won’t upgrade to Category One status for the new season, but says the Blues will aim to make the step up next year.
Town’s Category One aspirations were thwarted a year ago when they failed to make the required 75 per cent mark in an audit by just 0.3 per cent.
This year the Blues' hopes of upgrading from Category Two have been frustrated by the Premier League spending much of the season reviewing the qualification criteria and the announcement of a delay had been expected.
While Town are still to discover the full extent of the changes, additional requirements that they are aware of, such as new 3G pitches at their Playford Road training ground, will require significant further outlay and work.
"I had a meeting with [owner] Marcus [Evans] on Wednesday and the news is that we are planning to apply for Category One status, through the audit process, in the autumn of 2016,” Milne told the club site.
"They’ve been changing the rules for about 18 months now, which can be frustrating because it’s hard for us to know, at this present time, what is the new standard and what exactly is required.
"They’ve done a major overhaul of the audit. That’s where the knowledge gap is because that hasn’t quite filtered down yet.
"The Premier League need to really set down quickly what the new standards are that we have to meet, so we can crack on.
"On the bits that we do know about, we are working hard towards meeting them. We have been and continue to do everything we can do to deliver Category One status to Ipswich Town in the future.
"We know the support and appetite for the Academy is still as strong as ever. That was highlighted by the work Simon Milton and his team put in to making the recent London to Amsterdam Cycle Challenge a huge success for the academy.
"Sixty-seven cyclists took part, raising a lot of money for both the academy and Prostate Cancer UK and numbers continue to grow.”
Speaking to TWTD in April, Academy director Bryan Klug said that while the Blues' youth set-up has largely continued to operate as if it is Category One - albeit without the increased grant that comes with it - the biggest negative from a footballing perspective is playing matches against the likes of Brentford, Bristol City and Millwall rather than Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs.
"We’re doing it all, the only thing we’re missing out on is the games programme,” he said.
"The [Category One] games programme without a doubt would test our players more but a game’s a game and players are developing anyway.
"It would be better to be tested more severely week in, week out, but we’re coping and we’re making progress.”
Regarding the continued wait for the precise audit criteria, he added: "It’s a frustration without a shadow of a doubt but you have to deal with it.”
However, despite that, the 54-year-old felt the Academy made big strides during 2014/15.
"I think it’s been a very good season,” he said. "A lot of players have moved on into the U21s, we’ve had one or two who everyone knows about who are close to the first-team squad.
"The level of performance I’ve been quite pleased with. I think we’re making progress.”