Frustration with the lack of home-grown talent coming through in English football has reached such a level that clubs have started to discuss closing their academies.
José Mourinho has said that the structure and levels of reserve-team football may be stifling English talent. However, this was only one cause, the deeper effects of which do not augur well for the development of England players.
Peter Varney, the chief executive of Charlton Athletic, told The Times yesterday that, within the next two years, he expected the first academy to go. “If you are investing a sum of money at one end and nothing is coming out the other, it is inevitable that someone will look at their academy and say, ‘Why bother?’ ” he said. “There’s such a global market for players now that it is easier for managers to go out and buy the finished article.”
This is an apocalyptic vision of the future of English football because if the academies were to close, the supply line of English footballers would dry up.
However, at FA Premier League meetings, club chairmen and chief executives have shared the views that the money — about £2 million a year — invested in each academy would produce more immediate results if it was ploughed into the transfer market.
Robert Coar, a director and former chairman of Blackburn Rovers, said: “I think there are clubs who think, ‘We understand that academies are the right thing to do, but are we getting players through often enough?’ It’s a perennial question. I think everybody is beginning to think hard and to set about making a decision.”
The Barclays Premiership club heads started questioning the future of the academy system at a meeting three seasons ago. However, it was another of their quarterly meetings, two seasons ago, that confirmed the view that the clubs give no priority to developing English players. The debate was over a Uefa proposal that English domestic football should mirror European competition and introduce a statutory minimum number of home-grown players per squad. The proposal was thrown out by an 18-2 majority. Charlton and Norwich City were the odd clubs out.
“It was a fairly lively debate,” Varney said. “We were saying, ‘If you are going to invest this money in academies, it is only logical there should be places for the players in the first-team squad.’ We also pointed to the England perspective: don’t you want these players to come through? The counter-argument was, ‘This is a global market and if we don’t sign these players, Barcelona or Real Madrid will.’”
The vote was a further disincentive to youth development. As Neil Doncaster, the Norwich chief executive, said: “Incentivising the clubs can only be good for the long-term future of the English game. But if you don’t have academies, who will produce future English stars?”
The problem, according to Varney, is a short-termism that has fuelled the importing of foreign players and impeded the progress of young players from under-18 level through to the first team. “The demands of Premier League football are so intense that managers live or die on a weekly basis,” he said. “You can hear them saying it, ‘This is time for experience, not for kids.’ Kids need to be nurtured, kids need time and managers can’t give them that.
“How many kids are coming through the academy route into first teams? Very few. Look at what’s coming through versus what we’ve got — the truth is that slowly, slowly we are destroying the production line of talent. Ultimately there will not be a route for an Englishman to the top.”
There are notable exceptions. Manchester City recently gave a first-team debut to their twentieth academy player. Likewise, Middlesbrough showed what could be achieved through the youth system last season, when they reached the Uefa Cup final with a team containing several academy graduates.
But according to Varney, Lee Bowyer and Scott Parker, who came up through Charlton, might never have made it if they were in the youth system today. Both took time to bridge the gap between youth-team and first-team football and today they may never have been given the time to emerge.
This is the gap that Mourinho was pointing to in his criticism of the reserve-team system. The response from the FA and the Premier League is a continuing review of the academy system. However, it will have to be a considerable breath of fresh air to change the culture. A young English player, on signing his first professional contract recently, asked his manager what advice he had for him and the answer was: “Go and get yourself a job because the chances of you breaking through here in the Premiership are so limited.”
This is the kind of culture that Rupert Lowe left behind when he parted with Southampton, another club with a good reputation for youth development. “It is sad that the academies haven’t borne more fruit,” the former chairman said. “But they won’t until the culture changes here. The culture we have got is to buy success rather than create it. Until academies are given the right level of importance, England will always struggle to win World Cups.”
Views from the top
- “If. . . in ten years’ time, we’re saying England cannot any longer win World Cup competitions, we’ll be asking: why did that happen? Why the dearth of talent? And we will be looking back at the way talent is developed.”
Peter Varney
Charlton chief executive
- “The prevailing culture is that big transfers are an indicator of ambition. Investing £3m a year in an academy should be an indictor of ambition, too.”
Rupert Lowe
Former Southampton chairman
- “If I had a son coming through, in some ways I’d send him to an academy in the Championship. He might have a better chance of rising to the top there.”
Robert Coar
Director, former chairman of Blackburn Rovers
- “Our academy has two goals: to develop future players and to create a community involvement. We believe fundamentally in the power of football to achieve good.”
Neil Doncaster
Norwich City chief executive
Learning curve
40 Number of academies
2 Number of Premiership teams without academies (Portsmouth and Wigan)
£1.5m Average annual spend on Premiership academies by each club
25 Approximate number of staff per academy, 12 of which are full-time
4 Number of regional groups of academies. Present leaders of the under-18 groups: Leicester, Man City, Sunderland, Arsenal
1997 Year the FA's Charter for Quality was drawn up by Howard Wilkinson
30 Planned number of youth academies to be set up in New Zealand to look for talent for Charlton Athletic
10 Grass pitches at Liverpool’s academy
