MIDDLESBROUGH will still continue to attract young talent says boss Tony Mowbray – despite the Football League ruling to abolish the tribunal system.

The system which had set fees when clubs cannot agree a transfer for home-grown youth players was done away with by the league after the Premier League had threatened to withhold funding for youth development – more than £5million per year if the Elite Player Performance Plan was not accepted.

While the plan will guarantee clubs more funding for youth football over four years, the downside is clubs like Middlesbrough could only receive lower transfer fees for players who are under the age of 17.

The scenario of last week, when Chelsea paid £1.5million to MK Dons for Oluwaseyi Ojo, will be no more with a similar deal from here on in only costing in the region of under £100,000.

Clubs will also be bracketed within a four-tier category status with those at the bottom – category four – picking up 16 year olds released by other clubs.

A drastic overhaul and one which could affect Middlesbrough who have a rich history of bringing youngsters through the ranks.

However, it is precisely for that reason Mowbray is not too perturbed about the new changes.

He said: “It is something we have thought long and hard about as a club and how it is going to affect us. What we need to do and what category we want to finance ourselves into.

“You have to spend a lot of money to be in category one, which gives you the ability to go and pick (young players) from anywhere.

“This club has a history of bring players through the academy into the first team and achieving good things with us. That is always going to be a better selling point then – for example – a major club like a Manchester City or Manchester United or Chelsea or Liverpool coming in and offering a young boy the opportunity to go to their club.

“Most parents would see their career pattern as playing first-team football and hopefully with their home town team.

“ The local boys who have come to us like the David Wheaters and the Lee Cattermoles have gone on to become Premier League players.

“If a youngster’s talent takes them beyond where Middlesbrough Football Club are at the time then maybe the top teams can come along and pay for them.

“I feel that parents of young boys in the Teesside area will still see the advantages of having them coming through our system while being at home and in the warmth of their families as opposed to going away and living in a hostel.

“We have a reputation as a club with a caring attitude to young players who try to produce the right type of footballers.”

Mowbray, meanwhile, has welcomed the return of defender Seb Hines to first-team action.

Hines had been out for the past six weeks with a knee injury but made his return in last Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest.

He added: “There were spells where he looked like he had been out for a long time and there were spells of what you get off Seb Hines – bravery, great mobility and in the second half he was like a blocking machine, throwing his body in the way of things.”