The Importance of Youth Academies

With the player transfer fees growing to epic proportions and the UEFA Financial Fair Play kicking in, one solution to maintaining the quality of a squad with minimum expenses is youth academies. Developing and nurturing talent at a young age for the vision of the club has a very unique set of advantages.

Financial health:

It is simple, a player from the youth academy is for free while a player transferred from outside costs money. With rising transfer costs and agent fees, it is a sensible option. An example of this is Everton FC, who have a state of the art youth system. The squad played stars like Osman, Jagielka, Anichebe and Hibbert among others developed from a young age by the club. This has given them an edge, where they have been riding a top 8 position for a good number of seasons and are never listed among the big spenders.

Team Mentality:

It is said that the experiences shared at a young age create lifetime bonds. A set of homegrown players, used to playing for a club, playing with their teammates over a long period of time no doubt have a better level of understanding with each other. These players are integrated with the vision of the club. A blaring example of this is FC Barcelona, where a large number of players in the past few seasons including Messi, Busquets, Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Fabregas and the likes are products of the youth academy at the club. The resulting fluidity in their game is more than visible every match. Manchester United’s 1999 team that won the Champions League fielded Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Giggs and Neville from their very own youth academy.

Loyalty:

Players developed in youth academies more than often have their loyalties fixed. The likes of Giggs and Scholes who played at one club their entire careers stand proof to this fact.

Notably, Sporting Club de Portugal has a long list of stars produced from their youth academies – Christiano Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Nani, etc. and the sale of these players has earned the club a lot of money. Of course it is easier said, for youth to prove themselves in today’s world. Young players playing in local leagues who are seen to have ‘some talent’ are chosen. These children then undergo rigorous training at the academy or Centre of Excellence. These youths are given ‘tryouts’ with the first division club when seen fit, where they have a limited number of chances to prove themselves. More clubs across the world are now adopting this strategy. Hopefully, this will see the financial status of football in check in the coming seasons.