Youf/Academy Thread

Sep 9, 2015
21,180
21,260
AFL Club
Carlton
17 year old midfielder Luca Barrington joins from City. 10 goals in 22 apps. as they won the u18 PL title last season

Bit of a strange one this. Been with City since he was six and finally signs a professional contract with them and a month later he's off.

He signed his first professional contract with City last month before opting to join Albion.
 

Sphynx

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 10, 2011
9,868
31,809
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Surprised with this, thought he would get a shot at Leeds this season


Archie Gray has overtaken him and he’s 3 years younger and Gyabi looks pretty good also on early viewing and is around that 6”3 size, so a bit of POD to what we have.

That’s not to mention Aaronson is only 18 months older than him with Roca and Adams also looking like great buys.

He’s got plenty of potential and is to good for u21 football, a full season of senior football will be good for him.
 

Ninety-seven per cent of the former elite academy players now aged 21 to 26 years old failed to make a single Premier League appearance, official statistics reveal.

Figures obtained by i from the Premier League’s own collection of data uncover the stark reality for Premier League hopefuls who join clubs aged as young as eight years old and can, in some cases, spend more than a decade dedicating their life to a team before being released.

The analysis — of players born from 1 September 1995 to 31 August 2000 — includes 4,109 players who were registered at Category One academies. Category One status is awarded to the top-tier academies that represent almost the entirety of the Premier League — including the Big Six of Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United — and several clubs in the Championship.



Of the 4,109 former academy footballers, 70 per cent were not even handed a professional contract at a Premier League or English Football League club. And only one in 10 has gone on to make more than 20 league appearances in the top four tiers of English football.

During the past 12 months, i has documented the damaging impact the treatment of teenage players has had on the mental health of the thousands released from academies.

Players have shared experiences of depression and anxiety — some who still live with the effects to this day — suicidal thoughts and attempts on their own life.

Former Manchester City academy player Jeremy Wisten took his own life in 2020 after being released by the club and an inquest last November was told that Wisten did not believe he received the “right support” from the Premier League side after leaving.


The new figures reveal that of the cohort born between 1995 and 2000, fewer than half received a scholarship deal at a Premier League or EFL club, the contracts usually awarded at 16 years old when a player leaves education to train and play full-time.

Former Fulham academy footballer Max Noble, who first revealed his experiences at the west London academy to i, called and is campaigning for a suitable aftercare system to be established in order to protect and support released academy players.

i has learned that aftercare is a key area the Premier League has identified as part of an ongoing review into the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). The EPPP was launched a decade ago to professionalise the academy system and set out to put players “at the centre of the process”.

A growing number of figures, however, do not believe the EPPP is fit for purpose and that it has turned academies into money-making machines that manipulate the lives of children and teenagers for financial gain.

Last year, ITV News surveyed more than 100 footballers released from professional clubs and almost three-quarters did not believe they were given adequate support despite almost 90 per cent reporting having experienced anxiety and depression since being let go.

This week, 18 former academy players revealed their individual struggles after being released. One said: “I was honestly thinking if I jumped now it’d be less pain than I’m feeling now.”

There are a few standalone examples of better success rates. Of the 16-year-olds who played for elite academies from 2017 to 2019, almost four in five received a professional contract or had their contract extended. And almost three-quarters of the 2019/20 academy Under 18s were handed a professional deal or an extension.

Asked this week what improvements had been made to better support released academy players, a Football Association spokesperson said: “The professional leagues and their clubs are primarily responsible for the development and wellbeing of players who are active in the elite academy system, and bespoke regulations are employed throughout.

“They also provide a wide variety of support services to both scholars and former youth players who are no longer involved in the game alongside the Professional Footballers’ Association. We work closely with all of these stakeholders as the governing body of English football to ensure that the highest possible standards are upheld and the welfare of both current and former players is prioritised.”

Starting in the lower leagues and playing good football against men probably is better for a young player to get to the PL.
 
Horses for courses imo.

Going to an elite academy, getting the training hours that the lower leagues can't offer etc has proven to be very effective as well.

Even for those that don't make it to the Premier league, there are many that carve out a good career further down the pyramid, I think it would be wrong to call them a failure in the system.

I'm also not sure that the success rate in "lesser" academies/youf is any better. Its a very inexact science where a lot has to go right for a kid to make it at any level.
 
Apr 8, 2007
58,328
29,350
Dublin
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
SJ Sharks/Everton/NY Jets



Starting in the lower leagues and playing good football against men probably is better for a young player to get to the PL.
EPPP was a ridiculous idea. Look how many youth teams shut down because they just kept losing players to big clubs especially when there is no zoning. From memory it was all done to make England a better national team and that's it. Needless to say there are now a heap of foreigners in the academies
 
Sep 5, 2014
29,957
28,543
Hertford
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Manchester United, Stevenage FC
EPPP was a ridiculous idea. Look how many youth teams shut down because they just kept losing players to big clubs especially when there is no zoning. From memory it was all done to make England a better national team and that's it. Needless to say there are now a heap of foreigners in the academies
Brexit has pretty much stopped that I think. This generation will be the last of foreign loaded academies.
 


Animated GIF
 
Back