Protest against EPPP

[Vision]

All the big clubs have databases on all young players and keep tabs on any they're interested in, so I don't think there's anything to be gained by keeping youngsters under wraps.

Depends how/when they're going to be used really. If a 15/16 year old shows he's up to the rigours of 1st team football it could make a top club move earlier to snap him up cheaply at the new price structure rather than wait for him to turn 17. Thinking of the likes of Rooney,Bale,Walcott....

Anyone remember the name of the lad at Gillingham who played fairly regular at 15/16 a few seasons ago and was snapped up by Arsenal. Freeman I think.Is he still there?

[Svlad Cjelli]

All the big clubs have databases on all young players and keep tabs on any they're interested in, so I don't think there's anything to be gained by keeping youngsters under wraps.

Depends how/when they're going to be used really. If a 15/16 year old shows he's up to the rigours of 1st team football it could make a top club move earlier to snap him up cheaply at the new price structure rather than wait for him to turn 17. Thinking of the likes of Rooney,Bale,Walcott....

Anyone remember the name of the lad at Gillingham who played fairly regular at 15/16 a few seasons ago and was snapped up by Arsenal. Freeman I think.Is he still there?

Maybe - but the real inequality of this new scheme is that if a PL club can induce a promising young player to leave a lower-graded academy the compensation they'll have to pay is fixed regardless of the player and what they'd done on the pitch - whether that player be Wayne Rooney or Paul Brayson.

The only way this won't be awful for clubs like Reading is if they can ensure their promising young players aren't tempted away by PL clubs, because if they are then the compensation is insulting and derisory.

And that depends upon the ethics and integrity of PL clubs ..... who can now afford to hoover up much greater numbers of kids than they ever could before in the hope that some come good.

[Bucks Dave]

There are ways of ensuring you get more for your younger players. As I understand it the following can happen:

Bolt ons are allowed. In other words you can agree extra payments if he makes it to a higher level or a series of objectives are met.
A bidding war is allowed. If more than one PL club are involved then the player goes to the highest bidder.

We've already lost at least one promising youngster to Chelsea and I don't remember getting a huge fee for him.I also remember Jordan at Palace getting furious because of the low fee paid by a PL club for one of their academy players.

I think this is far more of a threat to the lower league clubs than us since we can demonstrate progress to first team play and then to a top club for the best players anyway as long as they stay with us until they are 17.

Not that I'm a fan of PL clubs and their bullying but I can't see that suddenly there will be a rash of low priced transfers out of Reading.

[Vision]

All the big clubs have databases on all young players and keep tabs on any they're interested in, so I don't think there's anything to be gained by keeping youngsters under wraps.

Depends how/when they're going to be used really. If a 15/16 year old shows he's up to the rigours of 1st team football it could make a top club move earlier to snap him up cheaply at the new price structure rather than wait for him to turn 17. Thinking of the likes of Rooney,Bale,Walcott....

Anyone remember the name of the lad at Gillingham who played fairly regular at 15/16 a few seasons ago and was snapped up by Arsenal. Freeman I think.Is he still there?

Maybe - but the real inequality of this new scheme is that if a PL club can induce a promising young player to leave a lower-graded academy the compensation they'll have to pay is fixed regardless of the player and what they'd done on the pitch - whether that player be Wayne Rooney or Paul Brayson.

The only way this won't be awful for clubs like Reading is if they can ensure their promising young players aren't tempted away by PL clubs, because if they are then the compensation is insulting and derisory.

And that depends upon the ethics and integrity of PL clubs ..... who can now afford to hoover up much greater numbers of kids than they ever could before in the hope that some come good.

Well we had this discussion on the general football board so I wont bore everyone with the same thing here but I just don't see PL clubs "hoovering" up and stockpiling loads of kids just on the off-chance they might make it. Certainly not any more than they do now.

One thing that puzzles me a bit. It says teh compensation for 12-16 could be 40k a year depending on the stature of the academy of the selling club. A) who decides the stature of the academy? and B) is this 40k for the whole of their academy education. IE possibly 7 years to 16 which would be about 9 years or does it simply refer to the time from 12 to 16?

[Svlad Cjelli]

There are 4 levels of academy decided by facilities and level of investment - for instance a Grade One academy must have at least 18 full-time coaches and accommodation. They are all allowed to do different things - and the lower the grade the less they're allowed to do (Grade 4 aren't allowed to sign kids under 12, for instance).

So grades will be set according to how much is being spent - according to the Telegraph only 12 clubs' academies would meet Grade One standard currently - all in the PL. Estimated annual running cost of a Grade One is at least £2.3M.

Re the costs there's a set cost per year they've attended the academy - this increases according to their age. It'll be set at £3,000 per year for every year of a player's development between the ages of nine and 11, and between £12,500 and £40,000 for each year between 12 to 16.

[Vision]

Cheers for that, makes it a bit clearer.

I should point out that I'm not supporting this move as I think it will be a real issue for lower league clubs. I just don't think it will be as much of an issue for us if we continue to do the right things so I can sort of see why the club would put a brave spin on it.

[Svlad Cjelli]

When Dario Gradi has come out publicly and said that Crewe might have to scrap their youth development activities then you can see how potentially damaging this is.

[FiNeRaIn]

We've already lost at least one promising youngster to Chelsea and I don't remember getting a huge fee for him..

Tom Lyskov? He came through got poached...then left chelsea to come back to us a year later or so later, never made the grade.

[Vision]

We've already lost at least one promising youngster to Chelsea and I don't remember getting a huge fee for him..

Tom Lyskov? He came through got poached...then left chelsea to come back to us a year later or so later, never made the grade.

That may have had as much to do with Brendan Rodgers taking over the Chelsea Academy as any financial incentives. Didn't his brother stay with us. Which again underlines it's not alwways simply financial considerations that come into play. Rodgers being head hunted by Chelsea because of the work he'd done here (even before academy youngsters regularly broke into the 1st team) would suggest how well run(sorry guys) and highly regarded our Academy is/was.

I'm actually quite surprised that Eamonn Dolan hasn't come under close scrutiny from the big boys.

Of course that in itself may be a curse as well as a blessing given this

When Dario Gradi has come out publicly and said that Crewe might have to scrap their youth development activities then you can see how potentially damaging this is.

You can of course be victims of your own success especially under these new rules. Top clubs might be more keen to take a punt on someone coming through a system they trust with a good reputation assuming the youngster will have been brought up with the right principles footballing wise.

I'm not entirely sure how long Crewe languishing in the 4th tier could sustain a top level academy even without these changes to be honest.It's only the PL's youth development that makes this even remotely viable i'd have thought.
A few years back something similiar happened to Barry Fry's Peterbrough who simply couldn't afford to keep up with the cost required to maintain the standards demanded for Academy status despite developing several good young players such as Simon Davies and Matthew Etherington. They had to scrap it.

[Svlad Cjelli]

Don't get me wrong - the aims of EPP are fine and the fact that it will increase the number of coaches and the coaching time for promising kids is all good stuff.

The real problem is the compensation process, which is completely tilted in favour of the PL clubs, and the way it was forced through by the PL.

[melonhead]

melonhead wrote:
if they manage to insert rules about further installment payments to the academy club, based on length of time at the academy, and level of performance/attainment achieved at his new club, that seems a better system to me.
but only if they do that, which they wont, so....

There are such provisions, but they'll only kick in if the kid is successful - the majority of kids will probably end up on loan form the PL clubs to FL clubs, for which the club who developed them will get nothing.
If Gylfi - an obvioulsy promising player - had been lured away when he was still 16 we would have got fixed compensation for what we'd spent developing him only (less than £100k) with no recogniction on his potential.

tbf to prem clubs, paying later for actual achievment seems a better system than paying for potential before anything happens
obviousy they just need to sort out that last bit so that, if gylfi was lured befor 16, but went on to play in the 1st team in a major league, and scored goals,made appearances, and propelled the club up the league, we would be due extra money.

i expect its too oxf*rd late for that though


will our academy be able to be a class 1?
- edit no not without building accomodation(or could we buy some barracks from arborfield?)
in which case our academy will attract/keep kids, only if we stay succesful, and keep pushing kids into the first team/getting them big moves to prem teams(so far so good!)
if i was a kid id rather that than never play any real footbal, and get shipped out onto the prem scrap heap a couple of years down the line- just depends how many kids/parents are that sensible in the face of prem riches.

[RoyalBlue]

An absolute disgrace that Reading voted in favour of this. Once again pretending to be one of the big boys and forgetting very quickly where we came from. Surely it wasn't that long ago that the club were complaining bitterly when one of the big boys took one of their bright young prospects for a pittance?

Hardly surprising, perhaps, when the club have shown they are not at all worried about trying to use technicalities to avoid follow up payments (York), play the Salako game and be less than charitable to clubs who are really suffering financially through no fault of their own.

This approach is madness. The big boys don't have the monopoly on developing talent, far from it. But by robbing the smaller clubs in this manner and forcing them to the point where they have to scale back or discontinue their development activities due to financial pressures they will only succeed in killing off a significant source of talent to the game.

Still, should come as no surprise really as the idiots at the FA backed by the big clubs in the womens game recently introduced changes (a significant culling of the number of centres of excellence granted an FA licence), which in the opinion of many will severely set back the development of the women's/girls' game in this country. What is ironic is that Reading FC suffered at the hands of this 'elite led' change along with the likes of Charlton, Ipswich, Crewe and Watford. Those clubs then saw their brightest talent snatched up by the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal, in many cases after having put years and significant expenditure into finding and developing that talent.

Doesn't necessarily follow that a kid would move just cos Billy Big Bucks showed a vague interest. Said youngster and said youngster's family would have to be in agreement and may not feel it actually in their best interest to change clubs due to extra travelling and lack of opportunity at the end of it all. Ultimately if a clubs Academy is run well and kids regularly move into the first team squad and then break through into the team itself then what is there to gain by going to a PL side (the likes of ManU, ManC, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal & Chelsea aside of course)

That's what the affected clubs in the girls/women's game hoped. Sadly that did not turn out to be the case. The vast majority of the talent (backed by their parents) decided to move to the big clubs, despite additional travel and no money (to speak of) in the women's game. Only a minority remained loyal, including my own daughter who has turned down advances from one of the super league clubs because she is happy at the club she is with and extremely grateful for what they have done for her (including standing by her when she had a couple of significant injuries).

[melonhead]

current tribunal fees are often a pittance anyway, just a slightly bigger one.

[peterroyal76]

Doesn't necessarily follow that a kid would move just cos Billy Big Bucks showed a vague interest. Said youngster and said youngster's family would have to be in agreement and may not feel it actually in their best interest to change clubs due to extra travelling and lack of opportunity at the end of it all. Ultimately if a clubs Academy is run well and kids regularly move into the first team squad and then break through into the team itself then what is there to gain by going to a PL side (the likes of ManU, ManC, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal & Chelsea aside of course)

Until the club involved offers to buy Mum and Dad a new house and car and give Dad a job. Allegedly!

[Svlad Cjelli]

current tribunal fees are often a pittance anyway, just a slightly bigger one.

According to the Beeb's Paul Fletcher :

The incoming system will put an end to the type of deal which saw West Ham sign Sam Baldock, 22, from Milton Keynes Dons for £2.5m in August.

Chelsea also reportedly paid the same club £1.5m, rising to £2m, for 14-year-old Oluwaseyi Ojo this week.

In both those cases the fee would be £100k maximum under EPPP.

Until the club involved offers to buy Mum and Dad a new house and car and give Dad a job. Allegedly!

Not unknown at all for this to happen - and now that it only costs £100k to compensate the club losing the player there's a lot more money available for such things, especially as the young kid would be living in at the academy. "If he moves, we'll provide you with a house to live in so you're near him ........"

[Simon's Church]

I don't understand how the Sam Baldock deal would be affected?

[FiNeRaIn]

So, let me get this right. There are no limitations at all...if a PL club wants to come in and clear your entire under 16's...they can do so for few hundred thousand at most? Brilliant.

Someone's trolling, there is no way this'll go through.

[Svlad Cjelli]

So, let me get this right. There are no limitations at all...if a PL club wants to come in and clear your entire under 16's...they can do so for few hundred thousand at most? Brilliant.

Someone's trolling, there is no way this'll go through.

As long as those under 16s want to leave, yes - it's upto you to keep them at your academy by being more attractve than a bigger PL academy.

And this has gone through - Thursday 20th October 2011, remember the date.

[FiNeRaIn]

Football is such a disgrace these days. How did it really come to this honestly? Lets pander away to those big premier league clubs so we can market the premier league all round the world and make the top dogs more money!! I mean in the last decade or so we've witnessed

* ITV collapse ( hey ho about money as usual)
* players booked for taking shirts off and showing passion,
* double standard disciplinary procedures for different clubs
* non-contact tackles resulting in red cards
* Increase in cheating, play-acting and match fixing.
* over-priced tickets forcing out the average fan
* astronomical wages forcing clubs in debt
* Sponsors in every ground ( restricting capacity especially in champions league games)
* Foreign scallywags looking to launder money through random UK clubs
* players getting in a huff not happy with their 200k a week for living in a rainy cold environment and refusing to play.
* FA stepping in disciplining managers for fielding weaker teams against the big 4 ( the monopoly they created btw) as if they have a right to decide that clubs team in any way at all
* To top it off football league clubs now being blackmailed into basically giving up any young prospects they have for a nominal fee.

I mean the lists endless and I'm sure i've missed stuff out. What are any of us still doing here? Why are football fans allowing themselves to be exploited and cheated the way they are? It is such a shameful sport it makes me want to spit on the carpet in disgust.

Everyone was right about me, I am a miserable w**k these days and now I see why. When you watch something you thought you loved get turned into absolute gutter trash then it makes you bitter all the time. When that time comes its probably best to move on because there is no resurrecting this at all. I hope reading at least go on some kind of late surge again this season, it would make a fitting finale for me.

[who are ya?]

I hope reading at least go on some kind of late surge again this season, it would make a fitting finale for me.

Surely a surge towards the Premier League of all places would be the last thing you would want.