HUDDERSFIELD SCRAP THEIR ACADEMY
When Huddersfield football club reached the top flight at the end of last season, I am sure a lot of youngsters and parents rejoiced at the prospect of the opportunity to play premiership football, if they progressed through the youth ranks. When Dean Hoyle announced a few weeks ago however that the club was scrapping its youth academy, it sent a shock wave thought the academy set up and the town altogether.
Huddersfield spend around £1 million yearly on their academy and they made the decision to save the money by downgrading to Category 4. What does this mean? That means they will be unable to recruit players under 16 and as such makes seven age groups redundant, concentrating fully now on U-18 and U-23 set up.
Since 2011, only one player has graduated through the youth ranks in the club, in spite of the huge amount of money spent on developing the academy. Central midfielder Philip Billing is the only player of note to have made a mark in the first team, although he was signed as a 16-year-old from Esbjerg in Denmark.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR ACADEMIES?
So what is the future of academy football?
Is Huddersfield right to scrap their academy?
Marcus Rashford, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling are some of the players who have come through the football academies of elite clubs. I watched Alex Iwobi as his dad took him back and forth and was joyful as the effort paid off in the end as well. Those are the cream of the lot, but what about several others? Kieran Gibbs? In the end he wasn’t good enough for Aresene Wenger.
But with Brentford also closing their academy, is youth football under threat?
LET’S TIME MACHINE BACK TO 2011
In October 2011, football league clubs voted in favour of proposals that resulted in Premier league clubs picking up their best young talent for almost next to nothing (a fraction of what they paid before then)
There were 46 votes in favour, 22 against, three no-shows and one abstention.
For most part, iit was a reluctant “yes” from many of the clubs, who felt they had no choice. If they voted “no”, the Premier League threatened to withdraw over £5m of funding that they give to lower league clubs each year for youth development.
It is all tied in with the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), which radically modernised youth development in England, introducing a four-tier academy system. The new deal seeing every club receive an increase in their funding for a guaranteed four-year period, with the amount determined by their academy status.
The idea – to ensure the best players are developed by the best coaches at clubs using state-of-the-art facilities – was that it would help the most-talented players realise their potential and ultimately, benefiting not only the club that develops them but also the England team.
Premier league clubs have continued to buy the best talents, but not all the talents are playing at the premiership clubs, while lower league clubs have seen their players leave their clubs for peanuts, forcing clubs to overhaul their academy set up, with increasing number now looking to make more changes that would see them scrap the youth academies for a more refined system that would cost them less money, but with greater returns on investment.
CHELSEA AND MANCHESTER LEAD THE LOANEES TABLE
Chelsea FC is probably the biggest culprit of the academy rejection game: Christian Atsu was formerly from Chelsea academy, moving from one loan deal to another, before finally settling at Newcastle FC. Nathan Ake and Nathaniel Chalobah have both been sold by Chelsea when they couldn’t command spots in the squad. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Tammy Abrahams, Kurt Zouma, Izzy Brown, and Kasey Palmer have all been sent out on loan this year as they cannot break into the first team squad.
The irony of this is that Nathaniel Chalobah has earned his first England senior call up after switching to Watford from Chelsea reserves and Loftus Cheek and Abrahams are having a blast at their respective clubs, so is it that the players are not good enough, not ready or cannot be risked in by their managers who are always under pressure?
None are bad players, yet the elite demand more and the small clubs develop their youngsters, only for the elites to come and lure them away with big monies and huge promises, paying minimal compensation, or tokens for them only.
Chelsea have 24 players on loan at several clubs all over the world, including the ones mentioned above.
Manchester City have had 28 players on loan since last year and have sent up to five players on loan to Girona FC in Spain, Pep Guardiola’s brother Pere’s agency business have a stake in the club.
The elite clubs are developing a pattern; if they cannot fit into the first team, let them go somewhere else. Is this the future for many clubs? How many clubs outside ethe elites would be able to afford that? Take a player from age seven and spend lots of money on them, only to discard them – sometimes free – to a lower division team at the age of eighteen or twenty and cut their loses?
BRENTFORD ALSO SCRAPPED THEIR ACADEMY
Brentford football club, my former club, also announced last year that they were closing their academy in favour of a B team (reserve side) that would play top opposition in friendly games, in a radical three-year strategy designed to establish a way of developing players with the aim of “creating the most effective pathway into the first team of all English clubs”. It has already seen O’Connor’s team of former youth team players and recruits play Manchester United, Liverpool and Bayern Munich sides in friendlies this season, with four players having gone on to make their debut for Dean Smith’s first team.
In other words, at a cost of around £2m a year, Brentford decided it was simply too much of a risk that their academy – with so much competition on its doorstep in London – would produce enough first-team players to make that investment worthwhile. Instead they are focused on recruiting young players between 17 and 20 who have been released by academies in the Premier League, as well as talent from “undervalued markets” overseas.
“We discussed various different options when we were doing the review and we felt the B-team model was the one that gave us the best chance of producing first-team players,” Rowan says. “It allowed us far more flexibility on how we do that because we are not as restricted by regulation or rules. It was the most sustainable and effective option. It’s a lot easier to assess something that has got a turnaround of three years than over 10 years. Once that is over we will more than likely review again and see what we need to do differently to achieve our goal.”
Point is: if they develop them and Chelsea or Tottenham just pick them up for next to nothing, is it worth their investment?
LET THEM PLAY
The most important thing that academy football should give young players, is a playing field to develop and grow into the first team. At the moment it is not happening enough and if the amount of money spent by premiership clubs in the last three transfer windows is anything to go by, it won’t happen anytime soon, so the question is, are we really developing the ones we have?
Can this trend continue to go on?
Can small clubs survive the next decade or would we soon be seeing big clubs buying up small clubs?
Would the young players suffer once the small clubs close their academies?
This summer, clubs spent £1.4 billion in the premiership on transfers, a 23% increase on last year.
Manchester City spent (£220.5m), but have had 28 players on loan since last year. Chelsea spent (£187.5m) but sent 24 players on loan, Manchester United (£146m) and sent four on loan, Everton (£145m).
Chelsea spent £187.5m, yet, Loftus-Cheek, Abrahams, Brown, Palmer, Zouma, Chalobah and Ake – not good enough for Chelsea – are good enough for other premier league clubs, putting up fantastic displays and learning and making mistakes along the way.
What this has proven is that is that if the clubs just let the youths play and make mistakes, they would learn and grow into their roles, therefore making the investments worthwhile in the end. But can they wait until the end?
I can see alarm bells ringing for the smaller clubs, no wonder Huddersfield and Brentford closed their youth academies.