Home-grown talent

English football over the recent years has become a target for the influx of foreign investors which have been taking over and investing countless millions into clubs and giving managers endless transfer kitty’s to buy talent from abroad. Less and less money is being invested into club’s academies and looking at home-grown talent you could find in your local club or down the park on a Sunday/Saturday morning but it seems as if scouts are more likely to be sent abroad to Europe or the South Americas to find talent than to a semi-professional club in London – which surely seems to be the easiest and best route for the club and most importantly which could boost home-grown talent’s reputation which is only just on the up due to the emergence of players such as Daniel Sturridge and Chris Smalling.

Speaking of Chris Smalling, his story is probably the most interesting. In 2008, he was playing for local club Maidstone United, after a series of impressive performances for both Maidstone and next club Fulham, two years later he signed a pre-contract agreement with none other than Manchester United. So in the space of two years, Smalling went from turning out for his local club to impressing so much at Fulham he was signing for the most successful team in England and one of the most followed clubs in the world, he is a shining example of what England can really do if investment and effort can be put into looking for home-grown talent. At the age of 22 and just completing his second full season at Manchester United, he has gone onto make more than 30 appearances for the club and he has represented England at multiple levels but most importantly gone onto make three appearances for the full national team and is surely a candidate to be on the plane to the Euros in the summer. Not a bad career rise in four years is it?

“It’s a dream come true, to be able to contribute to one of the world’s best teams is most definitely something I have to pinch myself about, at Maidstone there was a lot of players who were at a higher level and dropped down and I was just breaking through at that time and I was still in school. But I think in terms of learning more, they had a lot of experience which made it a lot easier for me in playing alongside them.” Smalling told Soccerbible.com in a 2011 interview.

The Premier League took obvious steps in helping English talent in time for the 2010-2011 season when they introduced the ‘home-grown’ rule which determined that clubs in the Premiership must have at least 8 players trained in England and 3 trained by the club for three years between the ages of 16-21, this was announced in 2009 after Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said the majority of clubs in the league voted for the implementation of the rule. The flaw in this rule was that clubs could sign from abroad at the tender ages of 16 and 17 and nurture them as their own, the most obvious example of this is former Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas who was classed a ‘home-grown’ player. He has now subsequently returned to Barcelona but at the age of 15 he was taken from Barcelona’s youth academy by Arsenal and this saw him count as a player who came under the ‘home-grown’ rule. Not only has the home-grown talent got to compete with players who are bought for upwards of £10million from abroad but they also have to compete with the young prodigies from foreign clubs who can be classed as home-grown themselves.

The implemented rule has meant English clubs have had to put more faith into home-grown talent, whether they liked it or not. Optastats say that last season over a third (35.4%) of all players who started in the Premiership over 38 league games were English, this is not such a bad statistic at first glance but considering this is the English league and that was after the home-grown rule was applied this could have been a significantly less figure in seasons gone by.

With the investments of businessmen such as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich who seemed to set a trend in 2003 when the Russian billionaire invested in the West London club and they proceeded to spend £112million in that summer on footballing stars such as Claude Makelele and Hernan Crespo, only three players of that 11 man spending spree were English. Since Abramovich took over, Chelsea have spent just over £600million on players and only £55million of that was invested on eight English players. This has set a worrying trend as new Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour has quickly followed suit since his acquisition of the blue half of Manchester in August 2008. Since taking over in 2008, the Man City owner has not only spent money on getting the club out of the debt which previous owner Thaksin Shinawatra had got them in but he has also spent £359million on players in four years (with £88million being spent on six English players, a better record than Chelsea) which is set to overtake Abramovich and Chelsea’s record which stands at £600million in 9 years.

It seems that English football has now become a land where wealth has put on trophy laden seasons; since Chelsea’s injection of cash and stars they had won six trophies in three years between 2004 and 2007 and this included their first league title in 50 years in 2005. Since Manchester City’s takeover in 2008 Champions League football has become the least fans expect; they also won their first trophy in 35 years in winning the 2011 F.A Cup and also putting on a considerable title charge this season which could see them beat rivals United and win their first top-flight title in 44 years. The problem with spending absurd amounts of money on players is that yes, clubs may be able to afford to but this has ramifications down the scale; do the big clubs not look towards the clubs down the other end of the spectrum? If you take £500,000 of the multi-millions which is spent on players it could help clubs like Portsmouth and Port Vale to get out of the financial rut they found themselves in. My eye is cast towards my local team, Windsor & Eton F.C. who had to fold not so long ago due to money worries but they managed to pick themselves back up and reformed as Windsor F.C in 2011, the money would have probably helped them as well as many other semi-professional and grass roots clubs no end.

The biggest problem which stems from this is the English National team itself. If so many millions are being spent on foreign superstars then the future (and sometimes present) England team will suffer as a result through lack of quality. I think a reason that manager’s don’t trust English talent is something to do with the so-called ‘Golden Generation’ which failed England so spectacularly in crashing out in the quarter-final or earlier of every international competition since 1998 – even failing to qualify for the Euro 2008 competition. Here was England’s most talented group of players since the likes of Hurst and Moore, boasting worldwide stars like Gerrard, Lampard and Terry but they failed to shine in nearly every competition they played in – most recently just scraping through the group stages of the 2010 World Cup with lacklustre performances in all games.

Admittedly the future does look brighter for English football’s home-grown talent through the home-grown rule being applied to the Premiership but the problem still lies in manager’s and clubs wanting to throw money left, right and centre to get the world’s best talent when in fact their respective clubs could be helped by a home-grown player who with the right training could shine just as much as someone from Santos or Barcelona. I believe a reason for the highly noted recent success for the Spanish National team is because most of their team ply their trade in the Spanish league or have been in one of the top Spanish teams, at the moment 15 recent call-ups play for either Real Madrid or Barcelona (the rest playing in the Spanish league besides Mata and Torres, who are Chelsea partners too) so this means they have forged a close bond not just at national level but club level too, meaning a greater chemistry amongst the team, the problem with England is that all too many of them play for different clubs and rivals causing too much bitterness amongst the camp.

Top-flight teams need to start taking a greater look into our own pastures for talent instead of jumping to the quickest conclusion and drawing out their chequebook because their answer could literally be just around the corner.