Academies will be independently audited and given a Category status of 1 to 4, with 1 being the most elite. Up to 10 different factors will be considered in the grading, including productivity rates; training facilities; and coaching, education and welfare provisions. The higher a club's Category the more funding will be available to it and the EPPP will see the Premier League and FA invest more central income than ever before in Youth Development programmes across the country. The old youth league system will be abolished and replaced by the Professional Development League. Clubs with high-category academies would compete others of the same standard in the top tier and so on. The principal changes from the former academy system are: Abolition of the "90-minute" rule â Academies were only allowed to sign players aged under 18 if they reside within 90 minutes travel of the training facility. This has historically provided each club with a "catchment area". There were some exceptions to the rule to provide for players living in remote areas. Larger clubs were prevented from taking youth players away from home at a young age for training. A four-tier academy system â It is proposed that there will be four gradings of academies, with the highest rated academies being able to sign the best players and command the largest fees. Category 1 academies will have high contact time with young players, require a minimum of 18 full-time staff and an operational budget of £2.5 M. Academies will be reviewed every two years and re-categorised if necessary. Categorisation is the result of an independent audit. The current academies and centres of excellence will be divided into four categories, as follows: Category 1 The top level category will require clubs to have an approximate budget of £2.325m. Have a full time staff of at least 18. Provide at least 5 hours contact time with players each week. The current 90 minute travel rule will not apply. Category 2 Clubs that cannot meet the required budget requirements and staff levels demanded by Category 1, but still have an indoor training facility will most likely fall into this category. They will spend less time coaching players each week. Will be allowed to take players from age 4 and sign players from the age of 9. Will require an estimated budget of £969k The current 90 minute travel rule will not apply. Category 3 Clubs in this category will not be permitted to coach youngsters until they are 11 Will require an estimated budget of £315k Category 4 Clubs in this category will be used to pick up youngsters that are late developers or have been released from other Academies or Centres of Excellence. Players will be 16 years of age or above. Will require an estimated budget of £100k Compensation Fees for each year of development Age 9 to 11 â £3000 for players registered at any club Age 12 to 16 â £12,500 for players registered at a Category 3 club Age 12 to 16 â £25,000 for players registered at a Category 2 club Age 12 to 16 â £40,000 for players registered at a Category 1 club Player Age Groups Foundation â Age 9 to 11 Youth â Age 12 to 16 Pro â Age 17 to 21 This will replace the current system of an independent tribunal for compensation. Thus a player who spends 6 years at the club may give rise to a fee of £56,000 (£3,000 x 2 + £12,500 x 4). Further fixed fees are payable on the player making first team appearances in any senior competition: Appearances Premier League Championship League One League Two 010 ..................£150,000.. £25,000.... £10,000.... £5,000 020 ..................£150,000 £25,000..... £10,000.... £5,000 030 ..................£150,000 £25,000..... £10,000..... £5,000 040 ..................£150,000 £25,000..... £10,000..... £5,000 050 ..................£150,000 £25,000............£10,000..... £5,000 060 ..................£150,000 £25,000..... £10,000.... £5,000 070 ..................£100,000 £25,000..... £10,000..... £5,000 080 ..................£100,000 £25,000.... £10,000.... £5,000 090 ..................£100,000 £25,000.... £10,000.... £5,000 100...................£100,000. £25,000.... £10,000.... £5,000 The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) is a long-term strategy designed to take Premier League Youth Development to the next level. If you read the above that says it all really The EPPP is the result of consultation between the Premier League and its clubs, representatives of the Football League, the Football Association and other key football stakeholders. It has six fundamental principles: · Increase the number and quality of Home Grown Players gaining professional contracts in the clubs and playing first-team football at the highest level · Create more time for players to play and be coached · Improve coaching provision · Implement a system of effective measurement and quality assurance · Positively influence strategic investment into the Academy System, demonstrating value for money · Seek to implement significant gains in every aspect of player development It will do this by focusing on four main areas: · Coaching · Classification · Compensation · Education These are the good points of the new academy system but there are major drawbacks in the system for clubs outside of the Premiership as well. The EPPP has been greeted with scepticism from parts of The Football League. The Premier League has been accused of blackmailing the Football League by threatening to remove all youth development funding if the Football League did not accept the new deal. It has been described by some as a way of catering for only the elite which it is the EPL stated that in their vision of the future. Bristol City Academy is trying for Category B/2 so all of our youngsters are vunerable to those clubs with a Category A/1 Academy Top clubs will also be exempted from the current rules preventing them from signing under-16s who live more than 90 minutesâ travelling distance away (or an hour for under-12s), allowing them to scout and sign players from anywhere in the country. Premier league clubs look set to benefit from the new rules making it even harder for lower division clubs to grow home-grown talent. Money talks! Only the richest clubs will prosper from the new rules. And hereâs why. Seemingly arbitrarily, a âcategory oneâ academy must ensure an annual budget of £2.3m is put in place, as well as employing 18 full-time coaches in a state of the art environment. And it will be the clubs boasting category one facilities that will have the pick of the crop from the talent at all the other academies or centre of excellence. Free from the old 1 hour travelling rule of the old system, Category one academies will be able to poach the stars of the future in order to bolster their home-grown quota at a fraction of the cost. So how has this rule been passed? Many people believe that the Premier League have held clubs to ransom and bullied them into voting yes by threatening to withhold the youth development funding it provides the Football League: £5.4m of it, to be precise. A small amount of money by Premier League standards perhaps, but potentially a lifeline for smaller clubs. The new rules mean that a category-A/1 academy can go to any other training ground to watch a player (giving 48 hours notice) and effectively buy the player for a fixed fee starting from £3,000. Premier League chairmen will now be rubbing their hands together; the Football Leagueâs own chairman Greg Clarke hazards that: âThere is always the danger under the new scheme that larger clubs will become more predatory but we hope we donât see that.â Reduced compensation means less financial risk for the top clubs, who have been given carte blanche to cast their nets ever wider. More significant is the fact that many young players could now end of rotting in the reserves at the top clubs instead of playing in the Football League every Saturday. The end result of the new changes will be that more players will be starting their football development at far fewer clubs in the future, which may not be a good thing for youth football in the long-term!
The crazy thing is that a player stands more chance of first team football if they go to say a Bristol City / Bristol Rovers / Yeovil than if they go to Chelsea etc (I do appreciate that if they go to a Prem club they can be loaned out). The trick is to get parents to believe that their kids coming to BCFC will be the right thing to do - once we get more youngsters coming through it should help that
I have just thought there is a way for the Cat 1 clubs to get round the compensation scheme they grab the most talented players send them out on loan to L2 sides pay minimal compensation then bring them back to the parent clubs after 2 years when they will have played close to the 100 games what is to stop them doing that as far as I can see SFA. It would cost them £50,000 rather than £1.3M so how are the lower rated clubs supposed to gain anything from that except the L2 club that was lucky enough to get the player for 2 years.
Well it has started we have lost our young player Maddox to Chelsea for peanuts. Lets hope that you can still stick a sell on clause in these transfers otherwise it's going to be a complete waste of time and money to try and develop youngsters
it would be interesting to know how many promising youngsters the big clubs hoover up from smaller clubs that end up playing non-league football by the time they are 20/21
Not all clubs did. Steve Lansdown could have made a stand. Palace even allowed a fans protest in the ground. The amount of money received is small, not even 1% of tv money goes to football league clubs. Hardly blackmail, no stand = approval.
these kids can turn around and say no one of ours not long ago said no to Liverpool we have to try and make them stay we can offer a route to first team football more than chelsea due to being where we are we have to make sure these youngsters realise this
But how much is it the kids and how much the parents? My little Johnny is at Bristol City Academy doesn't sound as good as My little Johnny is at Chelsea's academy.
Playing for European champions Chelsea in the prem. Or playing for Bristol City in league 1. Its not a hard choice nobody would turn it down, Especially a 4 year deal, Which will probably include a house for his family to move into. He'll play for a great team and will have contact with Jose Mourinho, Sorry lads but he would be stupid to turn this opportunity down. Plus if he ever makes it we can hold our heads high and know we produced him.
The problem is that anyone with an Internet connection can easily see our recent record for putting our youngsters into the first team. At least the likes of Josh McEachran have managed a game or two for Chelsea. Hell, Chelsea put Ryan Bertrand in the starting eleven during the Champions League final! We won't even have Dylan Castanheira as our second-string keeper...
For every one youngster, and his parents, who's heads are turned by the lure of a Premier Legue Big Team, there will be two or three who realise that the Category Two Academy may be the best option. Some years ago, I lived in Hanham and there was a very talented young player there who turned down a number of Big Clubs in favour of Bristol City. He was thought to be an absolute "Cert" to make it in league football, but he never did. Would he have made it if he had joined a Big Club? Probably the same result? He had a friend in the England coaching set up that they were in at the time, aged around 15 I think, who also turned down the giants like Man U, to join his local club West Ham. His and his parent's thinking was that he would stay living at home until he had matured a bit more as a person, he could raid the fridge during the night without risking punishment in some "home for trainees" at a club hundreds of miles from home. He would still have his own local friends outside football and so not have too narrow a life. He made it to the top by choosing his local team, as SO'D tells us all the time. His name is Joe Cole.
