German clubs have just voted so that it isn't compulsory to have an u23 team in the lower leagues to be a professional football club anymore (it used to be). Basically a waste of money & time they reckon as the teams aren't playing at a high enough level to benefit the players.
A problem with the grass roots game, FA comes up with an idea to help premier league B teams. This might marginally help the England team but it's impact on English football as a whole would be minimal If all this time money and effort went into the source from which these players spring from then that would surely help English football. Foreign players are cheaper, but lets be honest, more often they are better footballers too. Pep's Barca absolutely dominating Europe for a couple of years has done more for the English game than a decade of FA input, ever since United were made a mockery of at Wembley there has been a dramatic increase in teams moving away from kick rush football in several divisions.
I agree with the principle of preventing lower league clubs buying non EU players but its not going stop them buying foreign. It wont force or encourage them to go homegrown either. The b teams thing is bullshit. If teams want a b team they should have to start from scratch and work their way up the entire pyramid
Until we actually teach kids proper footballing skills and allow them to express themselves at a young age, we will forever be the nation of "kick and rush" football. As has been mentioned, playing on full size pitches with emphasis on winning rather than nurturing skill and talent and "winning at any cost, go in hard and fast."
Some of that as already changed. Kids under 9 (?) arent allowed to play competitive football and all games are 7-a-side too.
I would go as far to say that these ****er parents who stand on the sidelines yelling "take him down, go on go in hard" et al, should be banned from watching their children as well. My little brother used to play football when he was younger and almost all the parents were like this.
Sorry but that's total arrogant bollox Gerez! So it's ok for the elite teams in the PL to keep spunking money on non EU players but it's not ok for teams in the lower leagues to pick up non EU players! If the elite clubs in the PL stopped hoovering up all the young talented English players in the first place we might actually start to get somewhere!
PL clubs would be restricted to 2 non-EU players in their 25 man squad, as long as they don't have EU 2nd nationality but lower league clubs would be able to buy those players as well. So its not a massive advantage or change really as there are already work permit issues in buying non-EU players already in place. As for hoovering up all the young talent, the lower league clubs can command their price. Hughes at Derby for example, highly sought after talent, but his asking price is very high for a player under 21 and has no PL experience. The problem is the English players already at the bigger clubs. The loan sort of works for them, when they are under 23. The problem comes at the 21-23 age. By that time its make or break time, they are either going to break into the parent clubs squad or they aren't and if they aren't they need to be ready to move on. Problem is too many aren't and they waste crucial years going on loan (again). Perhaps making it a rule that players over 21 (or 23) can't be loaned out. Also British players need to be more open to the idea of going abroad to play.
These changes won't have any major impacts on my club as we are doing all the things that are being recommended. We only have one non British player in our entire first team squad! We haven't spent a penny on transfers this year instead choosing to invest £2Million in gaining our Cat A status so that we can compete with the big boys in attracting young players. We have all the infrastructure in place to provide excellent coaching to young kids in our wider catchment area and we have already produced Connor Wickham and Jordan Rhodes out of our academy. My worry is that these proposals will be throwing the baby out with the bath water! There are many football clubs like ours that do the right things and invest in young players and believe in giving them a chance in the first team. The big problem is that there is a lack of investment given to grass roots football. There is a lack of qualified coaches, decent pitches, decent facilities, school competitive football, referees and officials, the list goes on and on! Instead of the FA imposing draconian measures on the smaller guys they would be much better advised to actually start investing in the infrastructure at local levels of the game! Until we get the fundamental basics right we will never achieve what we want. So please Mr Dyke stop persecuting the majority for the benefit of the minority and actually come up with some workable plans that all stakeholders within our national game can agree on!
So you think preventing English players having access to the best facilities and coaches is the way forward then? For the record, I think all clubs shpuld restricted to four foreign players but employment law ****s all over it. I also believe the cream rises. If the English players are good enough...
It's worrying that I struggle to find something to say on a serious football topic. Well, as serious as this board gets.
Ok so there are two separate points here 1 when a player is 17-20 they are either already elite or mostly developed this is a bridging play or a finishing school 2 when a player is 8-14 this is where we gets comments about training v playing comes into play We all know that at 14 a guy can be built like an 18 year old and barrel his way about English style and look great, at 18 he's found out. So call it kick and rush or the English game or whatever but until skill and technique is what's developed BEFORE a b team slot completes the development by giving much needed toughening up I firmly believe having 10 elite finishing schools where eventually when certain clubs stop kicking them of the park due to hating the rich kids... Well once it beds in clubs will benefit but England won't cos frankly clubs will develop more suso types than sterlings
