Will the new academy system benefit anyone other than the biggest clubs? JAMES SHIPLEE investigates.
Last month the Football League voted in favour of the new academy system proposal set out by the Premier League, and the Canaries this week confirmed they would be bidding for Category 1 status.
Many have raised concerns that the new system will only benefit the big clubs, but they argue it is essential to ensure the best talent can play at the highest level. James Shiplee investigates?
With Category 1 clubs now able to have the players at their club for longer and from all areas of the country it will allow them to get more hours of coaching to their players.
The theory has always been that a player needs 10,000 hours of football to reach the top of the game. If a player is taken into the academy at 6 and they want the player to be ready to break into the first team at 18 that is around 16 hours of coaching a week, not including breaks for Christmas and any other time. This new system will allow this amount of coaching and more to be more easily undertaken.
The above will, theoretically, help more English players to be brought through, with the idea being English footballers improving to a level at which the nation can compete on an international level with the Spain`s and Germany`s of the world.
It`s certainly not all good news though. Lower league clubs have, in the past, benefited from the amount of compensation received for their youth players and transfers fees once the player has come through the system.
Barry Fry claimed that Peterborough had received over £10million in the last decade from former academy players being sold and that this was vital to them still being in business. If you take this away, or lesser it to an almost non-existent amount to benefit the “Top 5” then soon they won`t be able to operate.
What about the impact of a child moving or evening leaving home? So your 8-year-old son plays for their Sunday league side, five minutes from your home in Cornwall (an example), when you get approached by a scout from Manchester United who wants to take him to Manchester in their academy.
Personally, I don`t think this will benefit a lot of young players. Homesickness, loss of friends, same environment day in, day out for football, living and school, etc are all possible reasons and in the end the player may not want to play the sport anymore.
A lot are under the opinion this proposal is to follow the system at Barcelona. The thing that I`m wary of is that Spain is now a two-team league with only Barcelona and Real Madrid the main competing teams.
We are in a unique situation here in England with around 92 professional clubs where as most have 20-40. This new system could take us the way of the Spanish league with the top clubs pilfering all the talent and forcing lower clubs out of business with the above compensation reason.
And will we actually see better, younger players? How many players do the top clubs have in their academy, compared to how many come through each year? The majority of young players that get a chance are at lower league clubs; not that I`m saying top clubs don`t.
Everton and Manchester United are great examples of this. So with clubs buying players each year despite having massive youth systems will this change or will it just provide them more players to sell?
The Canaries have announced they will be going for a Category 1 system which, whilst it pleases me that we`re aiming for that, doesn`t make it right. In my opinion things were better as they have been for years and that this could end up ruining the country`s domestic situation in the hope of pushing for a better national team which could`ve been achieved with stricter rules on clubs line-ups anyway.
Will the new system work? Only time will tell.
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