Rising cost of market for youth players

Oct 9 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

NIALL Quinn may be asked to get Sunderland’s chequebook out again to supplement the Black Cats’ current crop of youngsters.

The Wearsiders reached last season’s FA Youth Cup semi-finals and many of their academy products were on show in last night’s reserve team game at home to Hull City.

But with the trend in the Premier League for shipping in – rather than developing – youngsters, Roy Keane believes his club cannot afford to buck it.

Signed from Barcelona at the age of 16, Arsenal’s Francesc Fàbregas is the most high-profile example. This season Manchester United’s first-team squad has included a trio of Brazilian teenagers in Rodrigo Possebon and twin brothers Rafael and Fabio da Silva.

Keane, who signed Frenchman Jean- Yves M’voto from Paris-Saint Germain in January, admits Sunderland may have to cherry-pick the best youngsters from “smaller” clubs to compete.

Arsenal’s latest crop of youngsters were lauded for their performance in the League Cup recently with Carlos Vela, signed from Guadalajara for a fee which could rise to £2m, scoring a hat-trick.

“The Arsenal-Sheffield United Carling Cup game made me very envious,” Keane admitted. “But we’ve got some decent kids here as well.

“The word on the street is that Arsenal have a group of kids coming through that will be absolutely outstanding. Anyone who works in youth football will tell you that.

“You go on about the kids coming through but a lot have been bought from other clubs. A lot of these kids haven’t come through the academy at Arsenal, they have been bought.

“It’s the same with Chelsea and one or two clubs like that. They buy a lot of these young players. That’s something we are looking at.”

The Irishman has long pointed out that his club is at a disadvantage because of the rules which stop English clubs recruiting players from beyond their immediate area.

He said: “If you look at our academy we are restricted in terms of our location. You can only bring in kids from a certain area. A lot of our radius is in the water. Any good fish out there?

“A lot of clubs go out and buy players. There’s no problem on that side of things but that’s something we have to consider. People would be reluctant to spend £400,000 on a academy player but that’s what Man United have done, that’s what Chelsea have done and Man City.

“Look at the teams in the FA Youth Cup final last year. Not many have come through. Even though they get a lot of credit for it they have actually bought these players. For us to buy from another club it would be, shall we say, a so-called smaller club because the bigger ones would just say no,” he said. “Every youth team would have one or two good players so you would look at them, you have to do everything above board.

“You also have to watch who’s coming to watch our youth team because we’ve had people coming to watch our game who shouldn’t have been there – scouts from other clubs. We have produced some good players and our youth team was very good last year. A lot are making their mark in our reserves and people are sniffing around them.

“If you’ve bought someone from Millwall for 50 grand, so what? Believe it or not sometimes that 50 grand will keep a smaller club going. It’s not all bad, don’t get me wrong. That’s one of the challenges and battles we face.”