Youth games have never been popular with media here in the UK, but elsewhere in Europe it has a higher profile. A case in point is that if you go to BBC website then you will have a very hard time finding any information on the development leagues and even Sky Sports/Talksport websites give little to no coverage. Our media is the quickest to blame the Premier League for the home nations lack of success at the international stage yet the Premier League was behind the push to create the Development League which began about three years ago. Is the likes of the media equally to blame and would you follow your team's U21 progress more closely if the likes of the BBC actually dedicated people to covering it with it's own section on their sports site?
Interesting, people are very quick to slate the FA for not producing enough young talent but maybe the problem is here in the UK it is the fans who have no interest and thus it would obviously spread to the young players. The nations that produce many world class young talent each year also have fans across the their national spectrum who take great interest in the youth, for instance the youth international Championships are the highest viewed TV events in their time slot in Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and Brazil. Here in the UK it can't even get a slot on BBC2. Maybe the home nations will never win a World Cup again because our culture doesn't care.
