EPL: Nine Steps to Revolutionise English Football

Step Four: Each age group has a university style grade systemfor its team ie. 1st team, 2nd team, 3rd team, 4th team. There is scope to move up and down each grading but this is dependent on effort and ability. Merit should be rewarded and laziness or lack of progression will be discouraged!

Step Five: Each age group grade has a 20 game season(playing each other region four times. Top two of each league competes in a final at either Burton Academy or at Wembley (depending on age group).

Step Six: The best players across the year groups will make up the international squads*. All of whom train at Burton along with all other national squads including U21’s and senior squad. By placing all of the international teams together in a similar environment, the youngsters can feel comfortable in this setting and see how the senior squad train and prepare at first hand. Transparency throughout the set up is key.  

*The welsh contingent would go to their own welsh national team set up.

Step Seven: At 17, players who graduate the year go into a draft. Player pool is based on 44 first team players across all four grades in all six regions plus approx 28 other squad members across all four grades in all six regions. Therefore, in total a pool of approx 432 graduating players every year.

Step Eight: The draft. Whoever makes up the 92 league clubs for that season can participate. Those eligible for the draft are split into 4 pools. Each pool is determined on ability and will determine which league the graduate is drafted into. The last placed team in each league gets first pickfrom their pool eg. in the Premier League pool, Hull chose first and Manchester United chose last. This way standards are maintained throughout the league and ability is rewarded and treated on merit.

Step Nine: No player can be purchased by another club until he is 19 years old. A player can be released by a club before that time and move to another bidding club for free.

While at face value the scheme I am suggesting may seem fanciful or, like communism, good in theory, terrible in practice, I find it hard to see why a system where by all clubs benefit, young players progress together - maintaining an education - and where no club has a bigger say than any other; can possibly be a bad system.

The French already have a similar set up in place and while Clairefontaine may receive all the plaudits, the regional academy model is a fully operating mode of youth training and development. The Dutch too, although club based, have a similar set up to this.

By taking the youth system out of the hands of the clubs and by creating a pool of youngsters across all age groups, it allows them to develop at a steady rate without big money moves or time wasted on the bench or in reserve teams, getting in the way.

The system is egalitarian at heart and I can see why people would be sceptical but essentially at youth level, the development and progression of the raw talent of youngsters is all that counts. They will have a ten or fifteen year career to worry about contracts and trophies.

Establishing good ethics, good habits and good relationships from day one will inevitably bear fruit within not only in the careers of those who come through from the set up but on the national stage; where England right now can ill afford to ignore any potential solutions.

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