Barber's youth policy

[Horses Arse]

Simply moving to category one doesn't bring an array of immediate talent, practically all the well known academy talents that we have brought through came from Simon Jordan's idea to invest heavily in the academy when he first arrived.

Pretty sure we need to expand our training ground though to reach Cat 1 status as our current one is too small apparently but it's being investigated.

.... Which wouldn't have been possible had you lived within your means and not got away with going into admin yet again. We've years of investment to catch up with the free financial input you lot have had over the years. It's really quite sickening.

 

[Hotchilidog]

You have to firstly understand the reasoning behind the change and how the older system impacted on young players, some as young as 9 years old.

Any system should not be implemented to offer smaller clubs a cash-cow where they can trade youngsters for undeserved (in most cases) income, it must be exclusively for the development and improvement of any young player.

The old system encouraged clubs to hoover up all the above average talented youngsters, knowing that if they signed a 9 year old child, they could hold that players registration until that child was 16 years old, that child/parent could not move at any time unless another club coughed up, in many cases quite sizeable fee's.

It was a corrupt system, for me encouraging lazy scouting and coaching.

The new system, in my view allows the player/parent a greater choice of Academy, those Academy's now must offer an exciting, imaginative and nurturing environment, if not then that player can move without the prohibitive compensation system.

The stories of millionaire academy recruits muddy's the waters a little bit, Academy's must now give good reason why any 9 year old might want to sign for them and stay with them, modern training centres such as BHA's might be one of them.

There is a greater accountability than ever before, the majority will gladly sign with their local club, with little options elsewhere, but when that one gem comes along, that player that might be sold on for £30 million might just choose BHA as his preferred option.

Interesting post, I had not looked at it in that way. I'll guess we'll have to see how it all plays it out.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Haven't Crawley taken a backward step and closed its academy down!

I'm sure I read somewhere, the Academy and the site with cost well above £2 million pounds a year to run. So we will need it to have a similar effect on the club than the Southampton ones has has, I'm sure the FA also pay if you develop English players.

It is a strange new world of football, where smaller clubs will get pushed out. I am all behind the club in its dedication to Football Fair play but it's a lot easier for us with a new stadium, high attendances, state of the art training facility and a possible cat 1 licence to allow us to go out and offer contracts to younger players from other clubs.

Still it's clever of Tony Bloom to do it this way. As long term it is setting the club up to be more sustainable, than ones that just spend, and often over spend their way up the league and then suffer long term when it goes wrong.

 

[BigGully]

I'm sure I read somewhere, the Academy and the site with cost well above £2 million pounds a year to run. So we will need it to have a similar effect on the club than the Southampton ones has has, I'm sure the FA also pay if you develop English players.

It is a strange new world of football, where smaller clubs will get pushed out. I am all behind the club in its dedication to Football Fair play but it's a lot easier for us with a new stadium, high attendances, state of the art training facility and a possible cat 1 licence to allow us to go out and offer contracts to younger players from other clubs.

Still it's clever of Tony Bloom to do it this way. As long term it is setting the club up to be more sustainable, than ones that just spend, and often over spend their way up the league and then suffer long term when it goes wrong.

I am not sure that's the plan or the consequence.

Crawley can run a youth team if they want, just like Mile Oak can they needn't subscribe to the costs of running a modern Academy, I dont think Crawley ever had an Academy until recently anyways, so nothing is really missing.

For me the importance when we are talking about youth development is the player, we are talking about youngster's from about 9-16 years of age, their only choice to coaching within the pro game was dictated by their postcode.

A lad born away from the large conurbations had few option outside of the local Centre of Excellence, it might not of been very good but that boy was stuck with it and those clubs knew it, any interest would trigger negotiations on fee's that in most cases were disproportionate to that clubs impact on that player, either the interested club paid the money, go to tribunal or the player was stuck where he was.

The process deterred better clubs from engaging with only the most highly sort after of kids, leaving genuinely talented kids unable to at least try to access better coaches and facilities, it was an absolute travesty when you are talking sometimes a 9 year old child.

The new system, although probably not perfect and whilst it does offer a stronger hand to the bigger and better clubs, offers genuinely gifted youngsters a choice to go where they and their families feel their child can best develop and improve.

Academy's now need to give real reasons why any player should sign and stay with them rather than why the have to, new buildings and baize playing fields are a good starting point, staffing and progression to first team football is key.