The danger lies with players who don't sign pre-contract agreements, though...there is now going to be considerable incentive to sign up any 16 year who shows a little promise in youth football, because it will cost next to nothing. Probably doesn't hurt us that much because of the reputation of our Academy (and could actually help, if it makes it cheap for us to accumulate youth talent), but it's takes much of the incentive away from lesser teams to recruit youngsters, because they're liable to be poached the second that they demonstrate the ability to kick a ball. And the bit about benefiting the English side is tripe; a large percentage of the current squad benefited from the exact opposite, coming up with lesser teams and thus getting an opportunity to play. It's their favourite trump card, though...don't worry about losing all of your talent for nothing, lower division teams, just close your eyes and think of England.
Generally, I'm all for what's good for Saints but some things are just wrong. The League clubs have given up money they have earnt by training youngsters in exchange for largesse from the rich man's table. The trouble with largesse is that it can be withdrawn or held over your head at a later date. What is the next demand the PL will make? The Premier League should be ashamed to have even suggested this. All this talk about getting better players for England is tosh, because the PL clubs (mainly foreign owned) care nothing for the national side.
That's interesting. I was half expecting there to be some sort of ruling that prevents you from getting category one status unless you're a premiership team (although of course come next season when these rules come in, we may well be a premiership team). I do think this is one of those things though that you need to look at from a overall football perspective, rather than just from your own club's perspective.
Think this is just returning things to how they were a few years ago. It's only a recent occurance that small clubs got compensation payments. In the past, a big club would just offer a kids parent a new house or car and magically the nipper would switch clubs with his existing clubs getting not a penny if he wasn't a full professional.
And in the context of football history as a whole, it was only a few years that Sky and the Premiership weren't around and these vasts sums of money didn't exist. If the big sides are moving with the times, then the small ones shouldn't be put back in the past.
Well, let's not forget that Saints got Walcott from Swindon for £30,000 and Lallana from Bournemouth for a similar amount, so the football pecking order is still the same it's always been. The big clubs feast upon every club. The average size clubs feast upon the small. The Small feast upon non-league and so on and so forth.
Ultimately I blame the FA for messing about and not getting on with the centre of excellence at Burton which was to address the lack of high quality coaching and improving all the England teams from school boys to full international. D!ckheads! As a proposal it may not seem as bad as what the media are making out. I heard that there will also be payments paid on potential so an initial fee will cover training costs but if the lad makes the first team an additional payment will be made - how much, I don't know. Also the chosen ones will get trained at great facilities and good coaches. Those that do not make it I'm sure will find their way into the lower leagues but have benefited from having a good football education. Will the big clubs stockpile the talent? Well the first team squad is limited to 25-35 generally so what would the point of teams having 20+ youngsters for each year going with little possibility of making the first team? Would parents of a 12 year old want that especially if they had to travel. Perhaps the best thing for the FL to do is raise the standard of coaches at the football league clubs to be more competitive.
Saints have and presumably still do poach youngsters ridculously cheaply. There's only so many local kids who turn up at the ground for trials. Anyone willing to spend a bit of cash has stretched the rules as far as they will go. We have 2 satellite youth centres, one near Bath and the other near Aldershot, which extend our catchment quite significantly. We have had to spend money on those though to extend our poaching ground. It does seem unfair though that Man City could go to Plymouth, pinch a kid and take them to their new superfacility in Manchester just like that. The 90 minute rule was introduced so that kids could train and stay at their local school, but now it's increasingly common for education to happen onsite. The new payment plan really is unfair though. Fees should be representative of the player's value.
I still think most parents would prefer their kids stay close to home providing they are at a decent academy already. You wouldn't uproot the rest of the family unless you had a very flexible job or were dirt poor anyway. There may not be as much movement as we think. It will only be the Theo's and Oxo's of this world.
This was mentioned in an interview with NC some time ago (before all the details came out) and he said it wouldn't affect us as we would be a top academy anyway. Do these reduced payments apply to youngsters at elite academies?
Yeah the brilliant way capitalism has got us in this recession, clearly reducing welfare will help, good old capitalism... By the way we can thank Alan Sugar for the demise of English football.
ah right thats okay for us - i was worried we would be nit-picked by the big clubs but I do feel sorry for the smaller clubs no matter how benefecial to us
After seeing that it had been agreed by the FL Clubs I also read this bit..... BBC Sport understands the Football League reluctantly advised its members to vote in favour at Thursday's meeting at the Bescot Stadium in Walsall. If clubs had opted against the proposals, the annual funding they receive from the Premier League for youth development - over £5m-per-season - would have been withheld. What an absolute disgrace, just 'cos they don't want to loose their money they would have the £5m p/s withdrawn, either loose money in the long run (not getting as much for the players) or loose £5m p/s now, what a typical showing of bullying from the PL!!!!
i hate the premier league with a passion even before this and they will do anything to get what they want to help the precious 'big 4' - bribery basically
Every form must dip, Utd will die off slowly and become a mid-table team again, maybe sooner than alot of Utd fans think! Chelsea are already showing signs of dipping now Abramovich aint throwing money at them any longer, Liverpool starting dipping but thanks to new owners they are starting to rise again although they haven't really been as much as Utd and Chelsea recently! Arsenal are dipping already thanks to Arsene's confidence in virtually no experience and due to this the experienced players are looking to leave. Man City are on the rise and thanks to their "lucrative" stadium sponsorship they have almost cheated their way through the Fair Play Ruling! Role on when we become the team Cortese want's us to be and start challenging the so called top 4 or 5 although personally by the time that comes round there may be 2 or 3 different clubs challenging there aswell, since alot of these changes have happened more clubs have started fighting for the Champs League so in a way it could help in the long run! The only way I can believe this will help the smaller clubs in the long run is if there is a substantial sell on fee, a minimum of 30% for example and I mean full sell on fee, not a percentage of profit but unfortunately I can't see this happening
