08 May 2014 23:05:01
Have had an idea about the whole "youth development thing, far from Dykes ridiculous proposal.

Change youth contracts in English football so a player cannot sign a professional contract with a club, until he has played let's say 5/10 games for 20 minutes or more. This means a player won't be given the contract purely so another team can't get hold of him. As soon as that youth contract runs out and he hasn't played, boom he's gone, this will save for example youngsters at Chelsea leaving the club at 22/23 by which time their development has slowed (we all know the biggest factor is 1st team football) but will leave the club if not signed at 18/19 so has plenty of time to find a new club to continue his development

1.) 08 May 2014
Fairly good idea, as it forces clubs to play developing players in order to keep hold of them. There is only a few issues with it.

Youth contracts don't deal with the players which the B team solution tries to. Those players between the ages of around 17-23. We would have to redefine the terms of youth contracts in general. Secondly after those 5/10 games there is nothing that would force the club to play them again, leading potentially to intermittent development.

Also it runs the risk of allowing the biggest clubs to run even more of a monopoly, as they'd be able to sign the brightest talents on compensation basis alone. The fact that they weren't playing games wouldn't force them to leave as they'd just repeatedly sign youth contacts. And for those players who aren't quite elite youth players get dropped into a very dangerous position where they might just bounce aimlessly between clubs on youth contracts for years, damaging their potential development.

Finally it'd be difficult to see how a loan system could operate in this way, as well as being potentially abused in loopholes.

It's a very nice idea and could be enforceable and practical, with a little refinement of course. Admittedly it's not enough on it's own to solve the vast amalgamation of problems English football faces. It's one of those things though, if it doesn't improve the situation it'll make it worse. And as much as I personally like the kind of approach this takes, I don't think it is actually a better solution then what is already on the table from the Commission. Regardless of the obvious inadequacies of the report, it's still firmly the best and most complete assessment and solution to the problem we've had in a very long time.

2.) 09 May 2014
The main problem with the B team solution is that the idea is the teams with better players will go up leagues so will experience a higher standard of football, but what if for example a player at Hull (just picking on them, they don't produce a great amount of talent) is destined to be fantastic, but he cant, because he's playing in a mediocre team, so he's essencially stuck playing league 2 football

The contract idea, players can sign pre-proffessional contracts so they can't be pinched, but the contract will only be signed if that game threshold has been reached before the youth one expires,
If not the club recieves a fine.

Clubs would only sign youth players they have an actual intent to use, so they wouldn't be bouncing between clubs.

Still applies to the loan system, will stop the abuse of it like Chelsea exhibit, look at Josh McHeran, on his 4th loan club, similar situation with Chalobah.

The non elite players, will leave a club early enough to continue thier development at a lower club, they may not fit at Arsenal, so they try a Championship side.

Also could have an incentive built in that say any player who after this is comissioned plays more than 50 professional games, the club he went pro with gets a sum of money from the FA depending what league the kid ends up in so say he began at Sunderland and reached the 50 mark there, the club gets say £100,000, but if he moves on before that to say Ipswich, Sunderland get say £60,000. But this money can only be used on improving the club's youth facilities. This will add incentive to clubs to produce the best players possible, to get money to invest!