GARY KEOWN: Damning report on young players exposes home truths our game has ignored for far too long...
it simply MUST be acted upon By Gary Keown Published: 02:30 EDT, 25 August 2024 | Updated: 02:30 EDT, 25 August 2024 e-mail View comments Andy Gould and Chris Docherty at the Scottish FA deserve real credit for the report unveiled in midweek on improving the pathway to the very top for players aged 16 to 21. Not least for making a 114-page offering on such unsexy fare so interesting, illuminating and worthy of ongoing reflection even after moving through the process of challenging your own preconceptions and closing the laptop. This whole subject has been batted around for so long in these parts that the very mention of it gets folk running for the door — or at least glazing over and going somewhere else in their head, to sunny holidays or the beauty of spring, until the grey person in the trackie droning on in front of them has finally stopped.
In many ways, Gould and Docherty, chief football officer and head of elite men’s strategy at the SFA, showed characteristics in their approach to reframing the conversation that they will no doubt seek in their footballers of the future. They were brave in detailing the litany of ongoing failures in the club game with regard to developing talent and, particularly, in addressing why many of the flagship programmes introduced by the national association itself are, well, flagging. Billy Gilmour seems to be the only current Scot who can match up technically to Europe's elite Scotland boss Clarke is finding fewer and fewer young homegrown talents to run the rule over Kilmarnock midfielder David Watson is one of very few young players to have broken through They were thorough.
One look at the list of individuals they held formal discussions with before penning their ‘Report On The Transition Phase’ — not to mention the collation of statistical research within — pointed to considerable time and effort being invested in arguing their case. And, most important of all, they were willing to put themselves out there to offer radical solutions and deconstruct long- standing myths. The title of their Magnum Opus, commissioned by the SFA’s Professional Game Board, might not have been terribly inventive, but much of the content within definitely was.
A Henry McLeish-style exercise in stating the bleedin’ obvious, it most certainly isn’t. It is challenging. It leaves the impression so many people working inside football in Scotland clearly haven’t bothered consulting research for answers and that some don’t seem interested at all as long as they tick boxes for those who dole out licences and funds from Hampden.
The headline points are already out there. That facilities — perhaps the primary focus of SFA president Mike Mulraney’s reign — have little to do with producing elite players. That the size of the Scottish top flight should be no impediment to rearing top-class talent.
That playing younger players does not have a detrimental effect on results. That managers here are under no more pressure — no matter their protestations — than their counterparts in countries where age-group footballers are getting far more minutes. All that stuff is good enough in itself.
It blows apart many of the usual excuses. Yet, there’s way more to chew over when digging into Gould and Docherty’s recommendations. Too much to detail here.
Which is why the paper is definitely worth seeking out yourself. It states early, in addressing why our game is falling behind so dramatically, that ‘the figureheads of Scottish clubs’ are focused on limited TV deals, ticketing and merchandise to bring in money when their European counterparts are preoccupied with developing young players to sell for huge profit. It accuses Scottish clubs of ‘failing to adapt to the new business reality of modern football — that a player-trading model is the greatest growable source of revenue while all other forms of revenue generation remain relatively stagnant’.
Dundee United's Dutch striker Van der Sande competes with St Johnstone's Ghanaian Essel From there, even though Gould and Docherty insist this was not an exercise in finger-pointing, it just hammers the way the game here works. Particularly in a section titled ‘Lack of strategic approach’. The points within have been raised by people within professional football.
And they’re frightening. It talks of boards having no long-term, overarching strategy at all, perhaps the major factor in creating an academy system that works. It details instances of academy sides playing an entirely different style from the first team and creating players plainly unsuitable for stepping up.
It mentions managers refusing to work with academy talent, clubs simply not having anyone at board level with the knowledge or background to hire the right staff to establish a coherent framework, and clubs having no key performance indicators whatsoever for academy staff. And it goes on and on and on. It reeks of chaos.
Most impressively, the report doesn’t miss the mark with the SFA either when it comes to the likes of their Performance Schools project and the Club Academy Scotland programme. ‘Previous experience has shown that the Scottish FA has launched a number of projects over the past 10+ years, but these projects have suffered from a lack of management or follow-up. Many projects have been discontinued or are resourced in a way which means they cannot be managed effectively,’ it reads.
Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi were both thrust into Barcelona's first team at a very tender age The authors suggest Performance Schools, which have not delivered anything like the number of full Scotland caps expected, need to be reviewed. They point out that the SFA are funding 27 different academies, which has led to a dilution of the ‘Best v Best’ strategy. They criticise the SFA’s communication on player development.
As for Club Academy Scotland, clubs admit the process of gaining an elite licence is just a tick-box exercise unrepresentative of the work actually going on at academy level. An issue for stakeholders seems to be that CAS delivers money up-front based on criteria, but doesn’t guarantee young players a chance to play. Funds need to be allocated more on end results.
There’s just loads of interesting stuff. It references a cosseted atmosphere in academies and questions why kids from difficult backgrounds have no measurable support to help them make it. Worldwide, many top talents come from such environments, so is that why the Scottish system now fails to produce ‘maverick’ players? Is it putting the emphasis on boys from stable homes who are more ‘coachable’? ‘It was notable,’ states the report, ‘that not a single example existed within our consultations with those individuals working in Scottish football which referenced a talented player who came from a broken home/poor background, who was difficult to manage for coaches but was supported through the system and onto a top-level career.
’ It states that 16 to 18 should perhaps be seen as the golden age for exposing footballers to the senior game. And it is right. By the time you’re 21, it’s too late.
Ex-Celtic youth Rocco Vata gave up on his first-team dream and moved to Watford this year It details the benefits of focusing more on repetitive training to build technique. This is one of Scottish football’s greatest failings — highlighted by the fact we have a national team which has only one player in Billy Gilmour capable of taking the ball in tight areas. There is a realism in the report too.
It understands quotas on homegrown talent will not be accepted by clubs. It accepts B teams in the second-tier are a political no-no too. Hence the promotion of a co-operative system in which younger players can move freely between their parent club and one in a lower league freely outside of the transfer window.
Gould and Docherty also recommend a scholarship programme to protect players ahead of their 16th birthday and educate them on the fact that pretty much no one who leaves for England early really makes it big. Ideas are spilling out all over the place. One thing for sure is that not all of them will gain traction.
Given Scottish football’s track record, it will be a fight of monumental proportions to have any of them adopted. Yet, the first step towards solving problems is to admit they exist. Gould and Docherty have done that in technicolour.
They have been strong enough to break out of the usual SFA mantra that everything in the garden is rosy, really. And they have even gone as far as putting forward the kind of answers we have not normally been hearing before. That’s why their views should be listened to — and acted upon.
The one arrival Celtic need is a transfer overlord It is inconceivable that Celtic will not sign new players before the closure of the transfer window on Friday night. They’ve got more moolah than the Bank of America and a first-team squad that is no stronger than the one which only just made it over the line last season. Worryingly, Rodgers appears to be operating a Michael Beale-style approach to transfers If the inflated fee invested in Adam Idah recently is anything to go by, there is every possibility they will pay over the odds again.
Because this has become partly political now. Statements of intent have to be made to disgruntled punters. Brendan Rodgers, Dermot Desmond’s Chosen One, must get at least something of what he wants.
In truth, it was good to hear Rodgers talk on Friday of the absolute need to strengthen and compete in the Champions League’s new 36-team group stage. The domestic campaign is already a one-horse race, given all those chickens that have come home to roost at Rangers, and life at Celtic is surely going to become a little boring for him otherwise. What really stood out, though, was his admission that he is, as suspected, in pretty much complete charge of who is targeted in the market.
Just like Michael Beale at Ibrox last year. And we all know how that worked out. The recruitment team come to him with names and he forwards the ones he wants to the board.
He admits that, come the end of this window, ‘we have to look at that whole structure and set-up’. He’s bang-on with that. It is ridiculous an institution of Celtic’s size are operating this way and probably explains why frustrations over a lack of arrivals have hit boiling point.
There must be checks and balances and a sporting director of some sort, seeking to establish a signing policy that fits into a wider, long-term plan. Mark Lawwell left his head of recruitment role in early March, for crying out loud. Almost six months ago.
He has not been replaced and the club are now in a position where they have an unprecedented warchest of cash burning a hole in their pocket with the transfer market reaching panic stations — and four or five different spots in the squad still needing filled. At the start of the summer, that would have seemed inconceivable too. Ambulance call is forlorn hope PFA Scotland’s desire to have an ambulance at every single professional football match is a lovely idea in a perfect world.
In the collapsing, wasteful, dysfunctional chaos of modern Scottish society, it comes across as pie-in-the-sky stuff. Partick Thistle's Stewart had to wait three hours for an ambulance during a recent match Partick Thistle Women’s Courtney Stewart had to wait three hours to be taken to hospital after suffering a head injury against Rangers last weekend. It’s disgraceful, for sure.
However, it is a story repeated day in, day out across all sectors of life. There are no ambulances. Certainly not enough.
Phone the emergency services and the chances are you’ll be asked to make your own way to A&E rather than hang about the house in vain. The system has quite clearly fallen apart. Having ambulances hanging around football grounds while others are left marooned after coming to grief would not be a good look in the current circumstances.
For now, footballers are just going to have to wait like the rest of us. Share or comment on this article: GARY KEOWN: Damning report on young players exposes home truths our game has ignored for far too long..
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