Youth academy - pro and contra for small clubs

Not only the business world but also the football industry is involved in a global race for the greatest talents. The big clubs fight over signing the most gifted players at a very young age for their academies. Therefore, many big European football clubs have exploited various "illegal" loopholes in the transfer regulation to sign under-aged player from other continents as the documents of the football leaks platform showed.

For smaller clubs it is almost impossible to develop their home-grown talents from a very young age into a player of their first squad. The reason is as soon as a young player is labelled "talent", the bigger national/international clubs lure the player into their academy. Small clubs not only lose a possible player for their future first squad, but also a potential transfer fee after the player established himself in the first team. Bigger clubs only have to pay a small compensation fee to reimburse the smaller clubs for their lost talent. The return on investment in youth academies seems to be pretty low for smaller clubs.

The question to discuss is: "Is it still worth for smaller clubs to run their own academy?"

Pro arguments for smaller clubs to run an academy

• supporters have a strong bond with home-grown players and identify themselves with young players from the region. Thus, having young players coming out of the own academy and turning into a star of the first team is an important factor to keep and attract loyal supporters
• an academy provides young players an opportunity to follow their dreams, work hard and learn important values for their life. It can have a high social and cultural impact on the region if the club facilitates a social development strategy for their kids.
• if a player starts from a very young age in the club, goes through the whole education, has his debut for the first squad, becomes an inherent part of the team and after two or three seasons is sold, then the ROI can be very high (not only money wise)
• with the current bubble in the transfer market to buy new players, it can still be cheaper to run an already expensive academy than buying new players. However, here are some limitations as small clubs mostly cannot afford to buy expensive players
• creating a strong and winning academy can be important for the long-term strategy and reputation of a football club
• keeping players from the youth academy in the first club can have a impressive impact on the clubs success as these players have the DNA of the club in their blood from a very young age. An example of this is the FC Barcelona under Pep Guardiola where their success was mainly based on home-grown players or Ajax last season reaching the Uefa Champions League semi-finals with lot of players from their academy.

Contra arguments for smaller clubs to run an academy

• having an in-house academy is a very expensive factor for every club. Not only do you need high investment and patience for seeing results but also have expenses to hire coaches and support staff. Furthermore, there are high costs in running the facilities.
• The highly professional combination of data analytics and knowledge from scouts helps smaller clubs to spot undervalued players with high potential to sign for the first or youth team. For example a club could have only two youth teams an u21 and u19. There they can place players that have high potential according to the data but did not make the step into a first team yet. This could lead to a higher permeability, increased ROI, minimized risks and less academy expenses.
• The permeability of youth players who make the leap to the first team is very low.
• In regard to the point above, the permeability for youth players from top clubs is similarly low or even lower. However, these player enjoyed a high class football education in the well-known academies of the big clubs. This creates a chance for smaller clubs to buy back young players that are highly educated but do not find a space in the first team of the big club. They can offer them a position in the first team, train them and sell them later for a high profit.
• The greatest talents of the youth academy are selected from bigger clubs and mostly leave the club before entering the first team. In general, the drop-out-rate of young players is very high and only a small percentage of every age group succeed professionally.

Another point to consider is if all small clubs would not have an own academy, it could create huge problems for the country′s talent development and decrease the performance of the national team in the long-run.

To conclude, it is hard to imagine that clubs will not have their own academies anymore. However, considering strategic points it could be worth to calculate the key performance indicators for each level of the youth academy. In view of the points above, a new model could be developed from smaller clubs to only have an u21 and u19 in their academy to increase the permeability, the ROI of the academy and the quality of youth development. The combination of data analytics and a professional scouting system can help to sign many young players with high potential to one of the youth teams and develop them into stars of the first team.

Discussion

What do you think of this topic? What are your thoughts about it? Which points would you add/remove to the pro and contra arguments? Do you know any club that already is changing the youth academy model?