Deadline Day from Pg.641 - Summer 2025 Charlton Athletic Transfer Rumours

KiwiValley said:

Vfrf said:

Interesting we've picked Jamaica as our feeder nation, very few top-end footballing athletes have emerged from there. 

Possibly being whooshed but my god Jamaica have churned out some athletic talent over the decades. Less of footballers than other codes but Jesus i’d not be writing Jamaica off as a target talent market. Jamaica has the population of say Manchester. How many gold medals has Manchester won at the Olympics ?

ShootersHillGuru said:

Jamaica’s prowess in broader athletic terms is quite astonishing. As far as football is concerned it’s probably a bit of an undiscovered goldmine in terms of Jamaican football league talent. Great forward thinking by the club for exploring the potential.

KiwiValley said:

Vfrf said:

Interesting we've picked Jamaica as our feeder nation, very few top-end footballing athletes have emerged from there. 

Possibly being whooshed but my god Jamaica have churned out some athletic talent over the decades. Less of footballers than other codes but Jesus i’d not be writing Jamaica off as a target talent market. Jamaica has the population of say Manchester. How many gold medals has Manchester won at the Olympics ?

Garrymanilow said:

Vfrf said:

Interesting we've picked Jamaica as our feeder nation, very few top-end footballing athletes have emerged from there. 

There are a lot of players of Jamaican descent who have been part of the England team for a long while now. Some of them like Raheem Sterling or John Barnes were born in Jamaica and some have Jamaican parents, like Morgan Gibbs-White, Kyle Walker and Sol Campbell. Typically those players have been the beneficiaries of a higher standard of training in England from a young age. Sterling almost certainly wouldn't have developed anywhere near as much as he did if he hadn't been in an English academy from the age of 10. I imagine part of our strategy with this is identifying potential that we can get for cheap on the basis that with a higher standard of coaching these players can be developed into better players and then utilised in the first team and sold on for a substantial profit. We're already competing with so many other clubs on our own patch and getting players poached by Category 1 teams out of our academy before they even reach the age to make any first team squad appearances, picking up these players for a small investment on proper contracts is a fairly low-risk strategy. You only need one of these players to develop into a Football League level player to benefit.     

Scoham said:

Nixon saying Bolton are trying again for Ahadme.

https://x.com/reluctantnicko/status/1953010446539096246?s=46&t=A-w3Eq0EWWpjMxring904Q

Scoham said:

Nixon saying Bolton are trying again for Ahadme.

https://x.com/reluctantnicko/status/1953010446539096246?s=46&t=A-w3Eq0EWWpjMxring904Q

Swisdom said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

Jamaica’s prowess in broader athletic terms is quite astonishing. As far as football is concerned it’s probably a bit of an undiscovered goldmine in terms of Jamaican football league talent. Great forward thinking by the club for exploring the potential.

I had a chat with Charlie about this last season.  Just before we signed up with Mount Pleasant.  

It’s fascinating really.  When the slave trade all started apparently Jamaica got first refusal on the African slaves so they obviously chose the fittest and strongest.  Since then they have just maintained a gene pool of excellent physical specimens and this leads to the thought process they Jamaica is a potential goldmine.
he had some statics but I can’t recall them.  But it was quite an enlightening and interesting chat really and hopefully explains our current tie-in with all things Jamaican

Garrymanilow said:

Vfrf said:

Garrymanilow said:

Vfrf said:

Interesting we've picked Jamaica as our feeder nation, very few top-end footballing athletes have emerged from there. 

There are a lot of players of Jamaican descent who have been part of the England team for a long while now. Some of them like Raheem Sterling or John Barnes were born in Jamaica and some have Jamaican parents, like Morgan Gibbs-White, Kyle Walker and Sol Campbell. Typically those players have been the beneficiaries of a higher standard of training in England from a young age. Sterling almost certainly wouldn't have developed anywhere near as much as he did if he hadn't been in an English academy from the age of 10. I imagine part of our strategy with this is identifying potential that we can get for cheap on the basis that with a higher standard of coaching these players can be developed into better players and then utilised in the first team and sold on for a substantial profit. We're already competing with so many other clubs on our own patch and getting players poached by Category 1 teams out of our academy before they even reach the age to make any first team squad appearances, picking up these players for a small investment on proper contracts is a fairly low-risk strategy. You only need one of these players to develop into a Football League level player to benefit.     

Fair retort and I don't care enough to carry out the due diligence on all of their backgrounds but I would like to know how many of them have come through the Jamaican footballing system and not benefitted from the English setup from an early age. Sterling for example grew up as a child in England.
Also I'm not saying all Jamaican footballers aren't good or worth looking at, if there's individuals with talent then absolutely but it's the only pond we seem to be fishing in overseas and en masse, they hardly produce the same level of talent as South America for example. If we were looking for an overseas link I'd assume that would be a more regular stream of talent.

I think the difference there would be cost. South America is a well known hotbed of talent and they generally get hoovered up by big clubs there who then are able to hold out for bigger fees. Chelsea paid £15.6m for a teenager from Boca, £13m and £13.7m for two from Santos, and this season £17.2m for one from Independiente del Valle in Ecuador and £29m for one from Palmeiras. All in the past three seasons. Granted these aren't Championship level players but we aren't at a level where we can easily prise South American talent away from clubs. There's also cultural considerations; Jamaican players speak English, there's a large integration of Jamaican culture into the UK and London and the footballing infrastructure over there is sufficiently small that a Championship team is a very appealing option. Football in South America is huge and players aren't going to leave aged 16/17 from Argentina or Brazil to sit in a second division English team's academy. We have to target nations that are still developing their football culture if we're going to be able to get them at all, let alone for cheap enough to make it not heavily affect our finances.