Anyone know much about non club specific football academy's? During my trip away last week, I bumped into Mark Lillis, ex-Sunny player/assistant manager and Dad of current No.1 keeper Josh Lillis. He was running a new football academy at La Manga, he has 24 lads their that were invited after attending trials in the UK and Spain. All of the lads were 15/16 years old and all were released this year by Premier League/Championship/La Liga clubs(18 from the English leagues and 6 from Spain). They are they for two years and are staying at Los Lomas Village for all that time(for anyone who doesn't know the place, they're not exactly slumming it). What surprised me, was that they pay nothing to be there, it's all funded by the academy and I wonder how the academy make their money back? I assume that they are signed up to some sort of management company and the successful ones will fund the programme ongoing, but they have four apartments and a staff of at least four, so it must come to some serious money, anyone know how Hoddle's academy operates in Spain? The other thing that surprised me, was how little the lads seem to know about the teams they've just left. There were two lads from Cardiff that I was talking to, they knew Gerrard as the senior players sometimes joined in youth training to help the young lads out, but they had no idea he'd been on loan with us all last season.
Just looked it up and apparently Hoddle's academy are now based in England. They must obviously get a big chunk of the signing on fee if a kid makes it.
Thats amazing, they might aswell not be at cardiff then, surely interaction with the senior players at least fairly often is good for them, even for morale and ambition, Ive always thought hull is slightly different to that, with the smaller facilities etc but im not sure, anyone know? I'm pretty sure the united lads coming through said about seeing the seniors in training all the time and stuff.
Hoddle's academy have now being linked with Hyde football club and i believe they will obviously pay something for the right to be linked to them, and have some of their players when called upon. However it was funded mainly by a third party and benefactor in the hope that in the short term it would clearly turn a loss but in the long run make a profit through third party ownership.
I wonder how difficult it would be for these type of places to actually register as a club and play at some level. Wouldn't they then be able to sell players on like any other club? If they are confident in their ability to spot players that will be worth something in a couple of years they would probably make a decent amount. They could also get the players to sign up to their agency for their whole career and maybe even with a higher percentage of earnings than a normal agency. I don't know if that would be legal though.
