With so much money that can be made from the sale of one player, clubs seem not to care how many kids they have in the academy. The stats show that academies are a failing system. They do not create enough professional footballers as a percentage of trainees.
When young children are signed to clubs, parents get very excited. They may later realise that it was all vanity and may have to cope with a child with bitter disappointment. The system needs to change.
Probably the only comment I have is I guess is the problem with having a reserve team these days is the cost of running it. At Barnet at present for example all the available funds are going in trying to compete with other clubs in an unbelievably hard league to get promoted from. What I do remember with fondness is when we did have a reserve team way back, first we had another team ready to fill any injuries to the first team because with no subs allowed then you were either in the first team or you were not. I also loved standing at the end of a reserve team game at Underhill and waiting for the tanoy to announce the first team result from where ever they may have been playing that day, OH and the score at half time with either cheers or groans mostly cheers. Know this throws little light on the problem you have raised but it did revive some more memories of Underhill days gone by.
And there is where I believe Premier League funding should be directed towards, they cause the problem by plucking kids to fill their academies and hardly any will make it, clubs further down are then left with damaged players both mentally and physically, unlikely to ever happen unless this independent regulator comes in.
With so much money that can be made from the sale of one player, clubs seem not to care how many kids they have in the academy. The stats show that academies are a failing system. They do not create enough professional footballers as a percentage of trainees.
When young children are signed to clubs, parents get very excited. They may later realise that it was all vanity and may have to cope with a child with bitter disappointment. The system needs to change.
Absolutely agree Roland, you are spot on. It needs to change but I think unless the regulator comes in, it's highly unlikely to sadly.
Probably the only comment I have is I guess is the problem with having a reserve team these days is the cost of running it. At Barnet at present for example all the available funds are going in trying to compete with other clubs in an unbelievably hard league to get promoted from. What I do remember with fondness is when we did have a reserve team way back, first we had another team ready to fill any injuries to the first team because with no subs allowed then you were either in the first team or you were not. I also loved standing at the end of a reserve team game at Underhill and waiting for the tanoy to announce the first team result from where ever they may have been playing that day, OH and the score at half time with either cheers or groans mostly cheers. Know this throws little light on the problem you have raised but it did revive some more memories of Underhill days gone by.
And there is where I believe Premier League funding should be directed towards, they cause the problem by plucking kids to fill their academies and hardly any will make it, clubs further down are then left with damaged players both mentally and physically, unlikely to ever happen unless this independent regulator comes in.