Glenn Hoddle

Build academies to give ‘released’ players a lift

AS A manager, there is no worse job than telling a young player he’s not getting a new deal. You know you’re crushing his dreams. And whatever encouragement you give, it can often be a decision that will live with them throughout their life, even if they do use it as a motivation to come back stronger.

And many don’t have that happy ending. They just drift out of the game or into lower levels of football, when actually they do have the skill to build a good career.

Clubs are set up maybe to produce one or two players from each generation; the rest of the youth-team squad can feel like extras. And though things have changed a lot since I was involved in those kind of decisions and they attempt to ensure the best possible pastoral care, ultimately the club’s needs are often different from that of a player. Sometimes they just can’t wait a couple of years for a young man to develop.

That’s why I’ve always believed that there should be a stepping stone back into the game for a released player. As Craig Eastmond’s story makes clear, when you don’t have a club, there’s no structure to get you back. He was fortunate to have an ex-pro like Jamie Lawrence to point him to Sutton United.

It’s why I set up an academy in Jerez, Spain in 2009 where we took a group of 18-yearolds, rejected by clubs such as Wycombe and Lincoln, but who we thought still had plenty to offer.

Sam Clucas, now in the Premier League with Hull, and Scotland international Ikechi Anya, now at Derby, were among that bunch. They proved us right. We would play friendlies against the B teams of Real and Atletico Madrid. Ikechi tore the Sevilla B team apart and they signed him! It was a residential FORMER ENGLAND MANAGER academy so quite intensive and educating players off the pitch as well, about diet and mental strength. But we also had experienced coaches in the likes of myself, John Gorman, Nigel Spackman, Graham Rix and Dave Beasant to work with the players.

The following season we took over a team that was going out of business and played in the lower reaches of the Spanish leagues. And we were top of the league at Christmas! You can imagine how that went down.

Unfortunately the debts incurred previously by the club meant we couldn’t continue with the project. The original idea had been that any money made in transfer fees would make it self-sustaining.

And though we faced loads of red tape on that, as only clubs can own the registrations of a player under FIFA rules, there is no reason why the FA and Premier League couldn’t lobby to get the rules amended.

WE need mini academies around England, two in the north, one in the Midlands and two in the south, to pick up players who are in between clubs and under the age of 23. There’s enough money in the game to build them and enough good coaches connected to the League Managers’ Association and Professional Footballers’ Association.

If the academies were funded by the Premier League and Football League, you could make it so that any club which wanted to sign a player would have to pay a fee to the academy. My experience tells me there would be plenty of takers for these players.

Authorities say this issue is concerning. This is a practical proposal which would go some way to improving the plight of those players.