In recent weeks and years, it’s come to every soccer fan’s attention that the Bundesliga in Germany is becoming one of Europe’s major production lines for world stars. Many people then ask why can’t this be one in England in the Premier League but for me it’s simple. As usual in my opinion, it all relates to money. All English clubs have enormous spending power compared to many other clubs on a similar level in other countries. The television deals that the clubs receive simply mean that other leagues struggle to compete financially. This is great for the league but simply fatal for the English game. Very rarely do England’s brightest and best prospects live up to the hype and given some thought it’s clear why.
Why?
If a Premier League club needs a striker for example and they can afford to be spending £30+ million then they are naturally going to look to bring in a world class player. Therefore many English clubs simply reject their academies because they don’t need to be taking a risk in playing a youth team player in Premier League games. Because of this English youth team players then rarely get a chance to play in significant games and so they simply do not develop and have to leave their club and make their way up the English leagues jumping from team to team to reach their goals. Another issue simply comes down to English culture. Many English people are reluctant to learn a foreign language as it’s not seen as necessary, especially at a young age. Given this, you’ll very rarely find English footballers in foreign youth teams where they are able to develop better than being trapped in your average Premier League youth team. One player that comes to mind is Eric Dier. Born in Cheltenham but a product of Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon’s academy. As a consequence of this, he finds himself in a very good position at a young age as he’s been allowed to develop swiftly in a not so money fuelled environment. There are exceptions to this rule, though, take Marcus Rashford for example. He’s without a doubt taken Manchester United by storm at a very young age and he is a product of the United academy but as you’d expect there’s a catch. The reason he came to stardom was for his performance against Midtjylland where he scored on his debut but he was never meant to play. £36 million signing Anthony Martial was preferred to Rashford but an injury during warm up kept Martial from playing. Money almost blocked Rashford’s development as it does many many clubs.
How Is it Better Elsewhere?
When it comes to the perfect model for the production of homegrown players for me there are 3 clubs who set the perfect example, Barcelona, Ajax and Borussia Dortmund. BVB is a particularly interesting case as they are neither an incredibly wealthy club nor do they dominate their league. Because of this lack of financial power, it forces the side to go to incredible lengths when scouting out potential transfers and so they pick up much more local talent in Germany than an English club would in their local area. For example two of Germany’s finest in Götze and Reus. Both grew up in the Dortmund area and were picked up from a very early age. As a consequence, both were given chances at a very early age and given a chance at first team football in the early stages of their careers.
English clubs simply don’t give enough thought to their academies due to the extreme wealth that is found in the Premier League and as a consequence, English youth players suffer.
