Unfortunately money talks and we can't compete with what some clubs offer these youngsters. However it is a fact that only a very small percentage of Arsenal academy lads make it to the top.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
If our academy costs £2M a year to run which I think i have seen quoted on here, then there has to be a consideration at some point as to it's worth.
All very well and good bringing kids through but when the cream are taken off us at 15/16 it starts to make you wonder. The PL clubs are ramping up their academy poaching massively in the last 5 years having seen the financial advantages of the likes of Chelsea who have done it for years.
It would be gutting for me as a huge fan of our academy but if you spent that £2m on players falling out of PL academies at 18/19 yrs old there has to be an argument. Three of the players recently we have made the most from linked to the academy are Pope, Lookman and Aribo who were not our own products. Even Beadle who as a 4th generation fan apparently "looked after" Charlton by making Brighton pay a fee only went for £400K which is 3 months academy running costs!
I can see tonnes of EFL teams taking a similar view in the end as finances outside the PL get tighter and tighter.
Can't believe we ever employed Ged Roddy and his son after Ged was responsible for probably the most destructive price of football legislation from a Charlton perspective.
We are now having to gamble £2M+ on individual players in the Championship to improve our squad. If we have even 2/3/4 Academy products capable of holding down a squad place, surely it remains a good investment?
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
If our academy costs £2M a year to run which I think i have seen quoted on here, then there has to be a consideration at some point as to it's worth.
All very well and good bringing kids through but when the cream are taken off us at 15/16 it starts to make you wonder. The PL clubs are ramping up their academy poaching massively in the last 5 years having seen the financial advantages of the likes of Chelsea who have done it for years.
It would be gutting for me as a huge fan of our academy but if you spent that £2m on players falling out of PL academies at 18/19 yrs old there has to be an argument. Three of the players recently we have made the most from linked to the academy are Pope, Lookman and Aribo who were not our own products. Even Beadle who as a 4th generation fan apparently "looked after" Charlton by making Brighton pay a fee only went for £400K which is 3 months academy running costs!
I can see tonnes of EFL teams taking a similar view in the end as finances outside the PL get tighter and tighter.
Can't believe we ever employed Ged Roddy and his son after Ged was responsible for probably the most destructive price of football legislation from a Charlton perspective.
Good questions for any academy. As Weegie says, it's not just the money you get from selling the players, it's how much you save when they play for the first team. No transfers, agent fees, etc.. and by and large they are on very low wages and don't even count as a squad space.
Also, I'm sure some might disagree, but in my eyes, if you were picked up by our youth scouts and played for our youth teams, then you're a product of our academy.
We are now having to gamble £2M+ on individual players in the Championship to improve our squad. If we have even 2/3/4 Academy products capable of holding down a squad place, surely it remains a good investment?
Says who?
Our fees are always ‘undisclosed’ yet when I challenged here it’s an open secret to what the fees are I was told that they can’t be published because of competitive / negotiation advantage etc.
So are the transfer fees accurate or not?
I believe they are known (to a reasonable degree of accuracy) but the nonsense of ‘undisclosed’ still evades me.
I get that being a Category 2 academy doesn't help us, but in modern day football Category 1 doesn't seem to matter much either. Yes you get a bit more compensation but it's still peanuts to what players could be worth.
It's still the 'big' clubs and everyone else. Earlier this week Leeds lost an England U16 striker to Spurs. In the past year, Man City have signed U15/16 players from Leeds, Newcastle, Villa, West Ham and England U16s captain from Southampton. All of those clubs are category 1 but helpless to stop the kids leaving.
The category of academy is a red herring. Kids don’t care. If they get the chance to play for an academy for a high level premier league club, they are going to switch no matter what the category of our academy.
I'd like to see a limit as to how many players a club can have on their books. Once this limit is reached whenever a club wants to poach another youngster from a lower league club, they have to release one. As things stand they can stockpile as many players as they like. God knows how many players Chelsea for example have on their books . The situation is crying out for change. But I won't hold my breath.
I'd like to see a limit as to how many players a club can have on their books. Once this limit is reached whenever a club wants to poach another youngster from a lower league club, they have to release one. As things stand they can stockpile as many players as they like. God knows how many players Chelsea for example have on their books . The situation is crying out for change. But I won't hold my breath.
You’d also have to ban any kind of multi-club/owner with multiple investments in other clubs as they’d just sign them for one of their other clubs and move them over. Chelsea did it with Vitesse. Watford do it with Udinese, we did it with Roland.
You can’t knock a kid or a parent being lured by the riches of a much bigger club and, to give credit where credit is due, it’s testimony to the great job the Charlton youth set up does and has done. It’s probably a hard call to make though, take some short term cash now and gamble on getting a chance to progress in what must be a far tougher environment or stick with the club with a better proven pathway to the first team and that’s developed you:your kid so much that bigger clubs are already knocking on your door and offering you contracts.
One angle that Charlton has emphasised in the past is that academy players here have a credible route to the first team. Young players can languish, dispirited, at so called ‘big’ clubs where they thought they would be playing for them, but they become a gamble, scooped up ballast where the ‘big’ club might get lucky on one or two.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
You’ve swerved the question, just like he did🤣 I’ll try again.
If everyone did a Benham, which is basically nicking other clubs academy players and perhaps occasionally getting lucky abroad, what would be the effect on English kids football development? The whole thing would collapse because there would progressively no more academies to do a Benham with, and withinn a few years the supply line of English talent would dry up.
i of course agree that the entire EPPP system is defective, not surprising when the entire structure of English football , with the FAPL as a separate entity is defective. But Benham is still a leech.
When Kasey Palmer was "poached" by Chelsea he was allegedly offered a massive increase in wages that he found difficult to refuse.
Saw an interview earlier this week with Ryan Bertrand, he said 18 years ago when he came through at Chelsea his first pro contract was on £500 per week. His kid is now 17 and in the Arsenal academy, and he said that top 17 year olds at the big clubs now are on anything from 7-15k a week.
When Kasey Palmer was "poached" by Chelsea he was allegedly offered a massive increase in wages that he found difficult to refuse.
Saw an interview earlier this week with Ryan Bertrand, he said 18 years ago when he came through at Chelsea his first pro contract was on £500 per week. His kid is now 17 and in the Arsenal academy, and he said that top 17 year olds at the big clubs now are on anything from 7-15k a week.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
You’ve swerved the question, just like he did🤣 I’ll try again.
If everyone did a Benham, which is basically nicking other clubs academy players and perhaps occasionally getting lucky abroad, what would be the effect on English kids football development? The whole thing would collapse because there would progressively no more academies to do a Benham with, and withinn a few years the supply line of English talent would dry up.
i of course agree that the entire EPPP system is defective, not surprising when the entire structure of English football , with the FAPL as a separate entity is defective. But Benham is still a leech.
If everyone “did a Benham”, the most profitable thing you could do would be to open an academy. And I’m sure Brentford would be first in line.
The goal of the FA’s overhaul of the academy system was to deliberately ensure that the best young players in the country were concentrated in a small number of academies, where they would train around other elite young players. Its whole remit was to develop elite players for England, largely by shifting them away from academies like Brentford’s, while allowing e.g. Chelsea’s to thrive. Why should Benham continue to pay for an academy that the governing body is actively trying to kill off?
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
You’ve swerved the question, just like he did🤣 I’ll try again.
If everyone did a Benham, which is basically nicking other clubs academy players and perhaps occasionally getting lucky abroad, what would be the effect on English kids football development? The whole thing would collapse because there would progressively no more academies to do a Benham with, and withinn a few years the supply line of English talent would dry up.
i of course agree that the entire EPPP system is defective, not surprising when the entire structure of English football , with the FAPL as a separate entity is defective. But Benham is still a leech.
If everyone “did a Benham”, the most profitable thing you could do would be to open an academy. And I’m sure Brentford would be first in line.
The goal of the FA’s overhaul of the academy system was to deliberately ensure that the best young players in the country were concentrated in a small number of academies, where they would train around other elite young players. Its whole remit was to develop elite players for England, largely by shifting them away from academies like Brentford’s, while allowing e.g. Chelsea’s to thrive. Why should Benham continue to pay for an academy that the governing body is actively trying to kill off?
So, you think all the other 60 or so owners of EFL clubs with academies should have done a Benham and closed them down too? Maybe if Benham had actually led a collective effort within the EFL to threaten that, we would not have ended up with this system ( I agree 100% with your description of it, btw)
Benham is a razor -sharp selfish arsehole who of course can do no wrong in the eyes of fans of that tinpot club (inc. 2 good old mates of mine) but this deference towards him makes me want to throw up. In Denmark they certainly don’t think he’s the Messiah, even if he did get that tinpot club into Europe.
The whole thing is nonsense. Coming from an EFL academy didn't seem to do Jude Bellingham any harm, nor the umpteen recent England players that have done the same.
Thanks Ged Roddy.
And Birmingham were what, £25m better off?
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
Isn't it one reason why the likes of Brentford got rid of their Academy in the first place, they've only brought it back because the Premier League have said you've got to.
Matthew Benham didnt bother with an academy because he considered himself the smartest tool in the box when it came to player trading. And because he did seem to be pretty good at it, the usual supine fawning English footie journos never bothered to ask the question,”Matthew, if everyone follows your oh so successful example, what happens to the future development of football talent in England?”
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
You’ve swerved the question, just like he did🤣 I’ll try again.
If everyone did a Benham, which is basically nicking other clubs academy players and perhaps occasionally getting lucky abroad, what would be the effect on English kids football development? The whole thing would collapse because there would progressively no more academies to do a Benham with, and withinn a few years the supply line of English talent would dry up.
i of course agree that the entire EPPP system is defective, not surprising when the entire structure of English football , with the FAPL as a separate entity is defective. But Benham is still a leech.
It is Benham's job as a custodian of Brentford to do the best for them. If the football regulators create a scenario where they make academies at B downwards level less viable because of the ridiculous EPPP ruling then he would simply answer that the future of talent development in the UK has been made more difficult for clubs outside the PL by the regulators. And that would be a fair and reasonable answer too. Whether that matters depends on whether your view is that CatA academies can be the answer to UK football needs even if all other academies were to close down. I think we all know the answer to that. But that's what you get when you employ and idiot like Roddy to put a structure in place.
Benham was wright for Brentford, the money he did spend on an academy went into a very good european scouting team. Remember not all category 1 academies are associated with prem sides. it based on the money you are willing to spend on your academy to bring it into line with category 1 requirements. that of course is a lot.
Comments
Thanks Ged Roddy.
We’ve lost count of the number of players poached under EPPP in the last 10+ years, going back to Kasey Palmer.
Where’s the reward for funding our academy and developing players now worth multi millions?
All very well and good bringing kids through but when the cream are taken off us at 15/16 it starts to make you wonder. The PL clubs are ramping up their academy poaching massively in the last 5 years having seen the financial advantages of the likes of Chelsea who have done it for years.
It would be gutting for me as a huge fan of our academy but if you spent that £2m on players falling out of PL academies at 18/19 yrs old there has to be an argument. Three of the players recently we have made the most from linked to the academy are Pope, Lookman and Aribo who were not our own products. Even Beadle who as a 4th generation fan apparently "looked after" Charlton by making Brighton pay a fee only went for £400K which is 3 months academy running costs!
I can see tonnes of EFL teams taking a similar view in the end as finances outside the PL get tighter and tighter.
Can't believe we ever employed Ged Roddy and his son after Ged was responsible for probably the most destructive price of football legislation from a Charlton perspective.
Also, I'm sure some might disagree, but in my eyes, if you were picked up by our youth scouts and played for our youth teams, then you're a product of our academy.
So are the transfer fees accurate or not?
I believe they are known (to a reasonable degree of accuracy) but the nonsense of ‘undisclosed’ still evades me.
It's still the 'big' clubs and everyone else. Earlier this week Leeds lost an England U16 striker to Spurs. In the past year, Man City have signed U15/16 players from Leeds, Newcastle, Villa, West Ham and England U16s captain from Southampton. All of those clubs are category 1 but helpless to stop the kids leaving.
Thanks Weegie ?
I like a house analogy 🏠
Once this limit is reached whenever a club wants to poach another youngster from a lower league club, they have to release one.
As things stand they can stockpile as many players as they like.
God knows how many players Chelsea for example have on their books .
The situation is crying out for change.
But I won't hold my breath.
Young players can languish, dispirited, at so called ‘big’ clubs where they thought they would be playing for them, but they become a gamble, scooped up ballast where the ‘big’ club might get lucky on one or two.
Hardly his fault. It was a financial decision and it worked for them. If he had been criticised he would surely just have said, make the financial rewards for developing players better when they are nicked and I will invest in an academy. These EPPP payments are an insult.
If everyone did a Benham, which is basically nicking other clubs academy players and perhaps occasionally getting lucky abroad, what would be the effect on English kids football development? The whole thing would collapse because there would progressively no more academies to do a Benham with, and withinn a few years the supply line of English talent would dry up.
i of course agree that the entire EPPP system is defective, not surprising when the entire structure of English football , with the FAPL as a separate entity is defective. But Benham is still a leech.
It is Benham's job as a custodian of Brentford to do the best for them. If the football regulators create a scenario where they make academies at B downwards level less viable because of the ridiculous EPPP ruling then he would simply answer that the future of talent development in the UK has been made more difficult for clubs outside the PL by the regulators. And that would be a fair and reasonable answer too.
Whether that matters depends on whether your view is that CatA academies can be the answer to UK football needs even if all other academies were to close down. I think we all know the answer to that. But that's what you get when you employ and idiot like Roddy to put a structure in place.
it based on the money you are willing to spend on your academy to bring it into line with category 1 requirements.
that of course is a lot.