Academy youngster and England schoolboy Ben Knight has joined Manchester City for a fee in the region of £1m. Another kid is apparently on his way to Arsenal. Evans is said to be frustrated.. would somebody like to point out to him that had he opted for a Cat 1 Academy we would have the best talent and it would have paid for itself?
It's not quite as simple as that, as regardless of the number on the wall I'm sure Man City and the like will always be able to poach players from the academy if they wish. I can understand Evans' frustration, given that if the player (and parents) want to leave then our only options are to A) Negotiate with the other club & agree a fee, or B) Drag it out through various channels until we are given compensation, which will generally be a lot lower. We cannot drag our heels and block any move. Given the time, money and effort clubs have put into developing young players (Knight has been with us 8 years) it is naturally infuriating to see them leave before they get the chance to do the business for the first team.. Particularly when that lot up the road have just brought in £30m+ from young players, £20m+ from one player who has had one good season at this level, so the £1m we're getting could look like absolute pittance in a few years time.
Another example of the way money is sucked out if the lower divisions into the Premiership.I don't suppose we will have any sort of meaningful sell on clause?
It's a lot harder and a lot less attractive if they already have top facilities, coaches and playing competitive football in the Premier League 2 with Ipswich Town. The benefit Town would then have over City is a much more realistic prospect of making a name in the first team. So in other words we could get £20m+ instead of £1m if we had a Cat 1 Academy? Pretty sure that's the point I was making.
We could have the greatest facilities in the world, but if Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Man Utd came in for one of our youngsters they are going to be tempted.. We are Ipswich after all and whether we are in the same league competition as them at Academy level doesn't change the fact they are all global superpowers and play in the Premier League. We are not and we don't. The issue that big clubs can effectively 'poach' youngsters with little consequence (financially) though even they are on the wrong end at times as Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal & City have all lost decent youngsters to rivals which they were powerless to block. Sancho to Dortmund as one example.
It’s an easy choice for a youngster to make if he doesn’t make the grade at city he will get the chance to impress lower level prem clubs before dropping down to championship......stay at Ipswich and your starting lower down the tree with less branches to grap onto. 1million is a good fee for someone who might be good enough... is there a sell on involved in these deals? I’ve said before I can’t see what difference which Cat your in its how good your coaches are not how many cones or bibs you’ve got.
My issue with the Ben Knight transfer is that it immediately undermines the club policy of using the academy to bring through first-team footballers, get a few good seasons out of them, then sell for a big fee. These days, if a player under 16 is good enough or shows promise, then a big Premier League club will always be there to lure them away. Particularly Manchester City, who have such a world-class set-up, it's scary. While relying on the academy is arguably the most practical way we're going to get promotion for a club with our resources, it's gutting when the brightest prospects get snapped up before they even step foot on the Portman Road pitch for a senior match. Ultimately, in this situation we were right to accept £1m, because the alternative would be a tribunal and a vastly reduced transfer 'fee'. The laws of the game need to be improved to protect clubs in lower divisions from these types of deals, because it only goes to illuminate, and further increase, the gap between the top six and rest of us.
Marcus wanted cat 1 - we failed by 0.3% or so. We did everything in our power before to get Cat 1, however the top flight clubs don't want non top flight clubs being cat 1 and getting involved in the top talent so the goalposts unfortunately were moved. We won't be attempting to go cat 1 again anytime in this league due to this reason. Sad but how it is. Joke football.
A five second Google reveals.... July 2014. http://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/frustra...e-up-on-category-one-academy-status-1-4129023 "Ipswich – who fell a somewhat farcical 0.3% short of the 75% mark that was required in July 2014 – are refusing to give up though. “I had a meeting with (owner) Marcus (Evans) on Wednesday and the news is that we are planning to apply for Category One status, through the audit process, in the autumn of 2016,” revealed managing director Ian Milne. “They’ve been rehashing the whole rules for about 18 months now, which is very frustrating because it’s hard for us to know, at this present time, what is the new standard and what exactly is required. “They’ve done a major overhaul of the audit. That’s where the knowledge gap is because their knowledge hasn’t filtered down yet. “The Premier League really needs to set down quickly what the new standards are that we have to meet. “On the bits we know about we are working hard on. It’s not like we’re sitting there with our arms crossed and our feet up. We have been and continue to do everything we can do.” He added: “Theoretically, we could have gone for it this year, but I think that would have been a total waste of time. “How can you go for something when you don’t know what test you’ve got to pass?” " They failed the original "audit" by 0.3% due to the lack of youth products making the first team. That shouldn't be the case now.
Okay. Before that Clegg was adamant that Cat One was a waste of money and recently I read that we werent interested in going for it. If we were aiming just for the pass mark at the time that's not the brightest strategy. It's like missing out on an Olympic medal by 0.3 seconds and saying.. I was close, can't you give me a medal anyway?
That didn't happen. We were confident we had abide to everything, and were very much in. Not by the skin of our teeth, but well and truly a mile over the line. Until of course the big boys played hell / the goal posts changed. They didn't envisage a second tier showing interest in being category 1, and thus made it impossible for us to gain this status. Cest la vie, ££££ ruins football.
To be fair, Hampy might be right about Cleggy. He left in 2013, I think, and our brave an gallant attempt at cat 1 was a while later.
There is no conspiracy. Not envisaging second tier sides going for Cat 1 is complete nonsense, there are plenty of them and Reading have never even been in the Premier League during this era. The most likely explanation is that we tried to scrape through with the minimal possible investment. If we thought we had done enough to score highly then it was a massive **** up. Either way it was a half-arsed effort. If we really wanted a Cat One academy we'd be running it as one every year and fixing anything we didn't score points on until we passed.
I'm only passing on information first hand from someone at the club. Do not shoot the messenger. Same person who told me Mick was leaving.
Well like I said, if we thought we were miles over the line and we didn't get it then that's incompetence.
I'm sure we had this debate 3 years ago. I think the club decided that splashing millions upon millions to (potentially) pass the test was not the best use of resources (given that Cat 1 doesn't really give us any more security anyway) I think what we've done since Klug has come back has been commendable, given some of the transitions into our first team as well as players into the football league. I certainly don't see it as another stick to beat the club with.
