Town are set to host the FA Women’s U21 East Region Academy, having fought off other clubs to take on the prestigious role.
An elite training and development programme, which also has a focus on education, will be overseen by Blues academy manager Lee O’Neill at Playford Road for the best female footballers aged 16-21 in the region, which covers Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire.
"""Ipswich Town will provide the players with a professional and elite environment to learn,” said Kay Cossington, the FA’s head of player development and talent (women).
"They have a fantastic infrastructure for supporting and developing talented footballers and in recent seasons have supported our most talented female youth internationals from the region in their own boys’ academy.
"""Over many years we have seen a number of female youth internationals from within the region stop playing football post-16 due to lack of opportunity at the highest level.
"We hope that this programme aligned with our own national youth programmes will provide an excellent platform for players to continue their development and fulfil their ambition. We look forward to this new and exciting partnership with Ipswich.”
""O’Neill added: "Bryan Klug [the academy’s head of coaching and player development] and I are delighted to be working with the FA in such an exciting opportunity for elite young footballers in the east of England.
"Being involved in such a big project like this will only help and develop the opportunities and pathways for talented female footballers.
"The academy has a number of excellent coaches who can help nurture talented young footballers. We also have the support system with specialists for players in sports science, performance analysis, strength and conditioning, psychology and recruitment.
"We will be working closely with players and schools of those players to deliver an education and high performance training model - which is very similar to the boys’ game - allowing the girls to experience training and education to the highest levels.
"Furthermore, allowing players access to this programme and facility will be a blueprint model for the girls’ game [16-21] across the country.”