Case Analysis: Youth contribution.
Source: The Technician UEFA newsletter.
NOU, UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MATCHDAY 6. FC BARCELONA V VFB STUTTGART.
BETWEEN THE TWO DRESSING ROOMS, TWO PLAYERS - ONE FROM EACH SQUAD - SHAKE HANDS, PAT EACH OTHER ON THE BACK AND EXCHANGE SHIRTS. NOTHING SPECIAL, YOU MIGHT THINK, IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF CROSS-BORDER MOVEMENTS AND PLAYERS WHOSE PATHS CROSS TIME AND TIME AGAIN. BUT THE IMAGE DID HAVE A SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE. THE PLAYERS WERE BOJAN KRKIC AND MANUEL FISCHER. STRIKERS, BOTH OF THEM. BOJAN (28.08.1990) WAS 17, 'MANU' (19.09.1989) JUST UNDER A YEAR OLDER. EARLIER IN 2007 THEY HAD ALSO MET IN BARCELONA, TEAMING UP IN ATTACK FOR EUROPE AGAINST AFRICA IN THE UNDER-18 DOUBLE-HEADER THAT FORMED PART OF THE MERIDIAN EVENT.
FROM MERIDIAN TO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
AFC Ajax, AC Milan, FC Bayern München, Chelsea FC, FC Internazionale, Manchester United FC, Olympique Lyonnais, FC Porto, PSV Eindhoven, AS Roma and Valencia CF. The squad contained former stars such as Giuseppe Baresi, Filippo Galli and Brian McClair. As specialists in youth development, their overriding concern was successfully converting elite youth footballers into established first-teamers - which is where Bojan and 'Manu' appear in the picture as a heartening vignette, albeit a rare one.
In Cannes, one of the concerns highlighted by the club representatives was the difficulty in convincing first-team coaches to include youth players. The firm belief was that the development of elite players is all too often hampered by lack of opportunities to train and play with the best. There was a fear that the gap between first-team and youth football is widening, with more players falling into a void created by lack of senior opportunities at an age when they are no longer eligible to compete in youth competitions.
At the other end of the scale, there were worries stemming from foreign clubs watching and attempting to recruit youngsters in their early teens or at even more tender ages. There are worrying case studies involving players whose
development is truncated by being either removed from their family environment or, indeed, having the entire family uprooted, allied with a lack of guarantees of top-level football. In Cannes, there was widespread acknowledgement among the clubs of a need to stabilise relationships and to establish workable sporting and investment ratios. Various paths towards this goal were indicated, among them legal ways of binding youth players to their educating club for longer periods and/or imposing further, legally enforceable, restrictions on premature transfers - and tightening the regulations on agents who are involved in the transfer of youth players.
There was also a suggestion from the clubs that the 'club-trained' and 'association-trained' rules might err on the side of leniency. The proposal to increase the requirement from three seasons to five (between the ages of 15 to 21) is sure to provoke some interesting dialogue at UEFA debating tables in the next few months...
But these events also offer unique opportunities for UEFA and the elite youth coaches to find out whether they can support each other more efficiently. In Cannes, the general feeling was that UEFA's club licensing system has had a positive impact in that it brought the importance of investment in youth to the attention of the decision-makers within the clubs. This, they feel, is making an important contribution to an increase in the quality of education and facilities.
There was also universal approval for the introduction of a UEFA-endorsed 'A Youth' licence, based on recognition of the fact that coaches require specific skills in each age bracket of development programmes - and it was also acknowledged that there are significant differences in the approach needed for each age group.
Inevitably, the relationships between clubs and national associations provided a major talking point. And there were some interesting ideas, such as associations grouping together the most promising players in a region
and going through specific elite training programmes with the best coaches from the youth academies.
But, above all, the club representatives underlined the importance of laying down efficient lines of communication between clubs and national associations. Or, to be more precise, between the academies or youth teams at the clubs and the national youth teams. In other words, the feeling was that lines of communication need to be established in the areas below the senior teams.
All the clubs were in favour of collaborating with the national association in terms of sharing knowledge and information about individual players. In fact the clubs asked if UEFA could encourage this type of interchange by involving representatives of both camps to take part in future youth football workshops and seminars- an encounter which produced positive results in Cannes.
