With everything going on I could not sleep, in a vague attempt to avoid counting sheep I was looking at the World Cup and the relative under performance of the European teams along with the solid games played by the South American teams over the last 10 days.
A quick drag through the results so far show that European teams have met South American teams 6 times so far and none of the European teams have been victorious with two draws and four wins for the South Americans. The traditional big European sides (Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Holland, England and France) have won five games in total over the first 12 days of the tournament, and two of those were by the Dutch and one came against North Korea.
In Italy, England, Spain, France and Germany the top clubs hold the power, not the relevant football associations. The top clubs have huge revenues coming from TV money or rich owners with deep pockets and short timelines for results. There is no incentive in these clubs to develop youth academies. There are some exceptions; Liverpool and Manchester United have traditionally had a decent stream of players moving up to first team football.
The Premier league is the richest league in the world, about half the players come from outside England. There is little incentive to produce home grown talent it’s easier to buy in what you need. Judging by the actions of the owners of the biggest premiership clubs I doubt they are looking much beyond the end of the 10/11 season, let alone 4, 5 or 6 years down the road when the results investment in the youth side could show results.
The FA’s head of development is former England player Trevor Brooking; he has been vocal and clearly believes that neglect of the youth structure in England is contributing to the lack of world class players in the England set up.
The flip side of this issue is the big South American clubs. Even the big clubs like Boca Juniors or River Plate don’t have the finances to compete with the European elite. Because of this they are unable to hang onto their best players, this continual exodus of their best and brightest forces the clubs to invest in their youth structure to keep the talent flowing into the team.
Is there an answer? UEFA president Michel Platini is attempting to give the big clubs an incentive to investing in their youth system by enforcing a minimum number of what UEFA are calling “home grown” players in the squad.
Home-grown players’ are defined as players that have been trained by a club in the national association for at least three years between the age of 15 and 21. The nationality of the player is irrelevant, just they they spent three years working for a side in the relevant country. At this point it’s only relevant for sides that are playing in UEFA competition, not surprisingly it’s strongly opposed by the major leagues.