Not sure this is true. However, the reason that players stay here is because they can see the chance of first team football. Is that going to happen if we are showcasing youngsters from Paraguay and Cote d'Ivoire?
Just trying to keep the hysterical panic on here to a minimum. The Pozzos haven't bought the club to run at a £10 million pound loss every year, it's about slow and steady improvement year on year and investing in what we need when we need it. Right this second we don't need a Category 1 academy, as much as it pains me to say it, and it's worth remembering that our youngsters won't necessarily agree to move to a Premier**** club after seeing the examples of Hodson, Murray and Sordell in recent years, they'll know that they have a chance of playing first team football here rather than rotting in an U-21 league.
Before we all jump the gun: This doesn't mean Harefield will run any different from how it currently does, it just means the club has a bit more control over the number of coaches it employs rather than a stipulation from the EPPP rules. As suggested on here, i can't see a reason why instead of players being signed by Watford they get signed by one of Pozzos other clubs then continue at Harefield as normal, thus protecting them from being picked by one of the category 1 or 2 clubs, then when older and if we want to keep them on pro deals they get transferred back to watford. So in essence we save money, find a nice route round the premier leagues desire to be able to nick all the young talent, continue the Harefield model providing more direct coaching than even the category 1 academies will be able to provide and just arrange some suitable friendlies against other clubs at appropriate times rather than having to maintain a huge squad to fulfil the under 21 fixtures - would seem sensible business to me.
It is a short termist cost cutting policy , it increases our dependence on foreign imports for the forseeable future, still cant see how this benefits the clubs health in the long term!
finally some sense. people need to stop panicking. yes we should be a category 1, however the club said in the past they were confident of keeping good enough youngsters at the club even if we did not achieve category 1 status. we will invest in the academy when the owners see fit, and when we have the funds to properly support it. if that takes a few years then fine. lets be honest how often do we really produce a wonderkid. Ashley Young and Sean Murray are the two most recent, we got Sordell from Fulham after all. Im sure once we get to the premier league and if we become established we can improve the academy to a 1 or 2 status.
I think people are overreacting to this a little. A few thoughts: 1. A club's status isn't set in stone forever. It can be re-assessed later on. I would put money on the plan being to get our academy a status upgrade after achieving Premier League status. 2. EPPP only applies to English clubs. We're now part of a European triumvirate that includes a Spanish and Italian side, both in the top leagues of their respective countries. If we have a good player that we want to avoid being poached, I guarantee you that those foreign connections will be worked to the fullest extent in order to prevent us from losing the player. This gives us an inherent anti-poaching advantage that no other club in the Football League has. 3. The main "advantage" of being a Cat 1 club is that you can poach players from other clubs, and you're protected from having your players poached in turn. Since we already a level of protection against predation, the only advantage we get would be the ability to steal players from other clubs. Considering that every other Cat 1/2 club would be looking to do the same, how much of a benefit would this be in practice? I would argue that it wouldn't amount to much. We'd be spending 2.2 million extra a year for basically no return. 4. The fact that we're not pumping millions in the academy doesn't mean the standard of our academy is going to change, nor does it mean we're going to cut services. It simply means we're not going to throw money at an arbitrary set of standards that seem to equate excellence to money spent and staff employed, rather than results. There is no reason that our academy can't continue to run in exactly the same fashion as we have been doing for years, and no one has said anything about defunding it. To sum up, we'll save about 2.2 million a year and lose the questionable advantage of being able to steal other clubs' players, while retaining a level of player protection due to our foreign connections. That doesn't seem like too terrible of a trade to me. The category status awarded to the club doesn't change a thing in relation to how we operate our day to day work with the youngsters. What matters is whether or not the services and facilities are cut. Thus far, there has been no indication that this will be the case. All that has been said is that we won't spend silly money chasing arguably pointless numerical standards. The amount of money spent creating something has never been a solid indication of the quality of any end product.
...but if we are bringing in 35 year old Italians at right back, the likes of Hodson is not going to get his chance. Murray is exceptional, but do you see Massey, Whichelow, Jenkins, Bennett, Hoban - even Mingoia and Thompson- establishing themselves in the side?
Time will tell if this is a good decision. Right now it feels alien to the ethos of the club. However Granada are investing in their youth as the article Prentice wrote illustrates. Not too pleased but will wait to see how it all pans out.
We haven't signed anyone yet though have we? I know what you are saying but we'll have to wait and see.
Exactly my thinking. Sign the promising young players up to Udinese, no one can touch them then. we still get all the benefits, and none of the cost. F*&king brilliant if you ask me.
Until the Football League decides they don't like our inherent advantage and create a rule against it. In fact I'm not even sure this idea of registering youth players abroad and having them play for Watford is allowed as it is. I can't imagine the Italy and Spain FAs being happy to be complicit in our little fiddle and UEFA are all about home grown talent these days so probably wouldn't be too chuffed either.
Having Udinese or Granada registered players at Harefield would be completely artificial and soon stopped. Besides, even if the aim is to protect the investment in youth players from EPL clubs, does anyone on here actually know what the La Liga and Serie A regulations are on this? Or UEFA's? Doubt it.
That's not how it works. Either way if the player doesn't want to go they don't go. If the player does want to go we can't stop them. If a club comes in for a player we cannot stop them from going. So... why would one of our young players choose to go to Granada/Udinese over Man City/Man Utd/Chelsea? We don't choose which club they go to which makes this arguement irrelevent unless of course the player is transferred abroad before another club gets the chance to come in for them.
Apart from the fact how many kids parents will want them to be schooled abroad ,and the main fact that a cat 1 or cat 2 club agent will turn the parents heads before we even know of it! Also if there was a workable loophole rest assured the prem bullyboys will close it pdq.
The power of 'it's our competition and if you don't like the rules go find another league to play in'. It's usually persuasive when push comes to shove.
Indeed. And don't forget the Premier League "bought" this arrangement with a wheelbarrow full of cash. They won't just accept someone avoiding their part of the deal (however unfair we think it might be).
Tricky subject, but here's my opinion - right now, in the position we're in, would we miss out *that* much in the short-term as a category 3 academy, sorted ourselves out financially, and became a more attractive club to join? I'm not so sure we would. It's unlikely that having one/ two seasons not being category one will see us lose any youth player, and the same applies in terms of players coming in. We're not the sort of club that can do that right now. With that in mind, all the academy players themselves 'lose out' on - to my knowledge anyway - is the u21 Development League, which, I think, was going to be fairly pointless because it'd end up being our u18s against Premier League sides with much bigger squads and superior resources, which wouldn't exactly be the best thing for the youth players' development. Having said that, the statement is appalling, and doesn't go into any detail as to WHY this decision has been made, to settle the fans, because this is a big deal, the pride and joy of our club. If, as Nani states, that Harefield won't be affected, then say why the decision has been made and why Harefield won't be affected.
Can nobody else see what they're doing? To me it's clear that the Pozzo family don't really care about our academy, and with their scouting network they can find foreign players and sign them for cheaper than the academy will cost. What I don't get is, I thought our academy was our biggest asset? I agree with everyone though and think it's ridiculous.
Also people saying we wouldn't lose out by having cat 3 for a while, we'd lose all our under 11 players! I'm pretty sure Sean Murray and Lloyd Doyley were at Watford before 11...
With our reputation for producing decent players and a few real gems, I can see a lot of other Cat 1 & 2 clubs starting to really sniff around our academy this season. They probably don't believe their luck hearing this news. If I were one of our rivals, I'd get in there quick and have a good old look at our production line.
I thought it was that we couldn't sign players that were under 11? They were my initial thoughts from what I've heard so far, not certain on all the various stipulations.
I seriously doubt the 'outrage' on here will last very long, knowing how fickle most of you are - if we're top of the league at Christmas it'll be a case of Accademy what ?
Well, Matty Bevans doesn't seem very pleased with losing out on playing in the U21 league, however, I digress. Knee jerk reaction: this is terrible. The Pozzos are making a short term cash saving which would end up costing money long term. Slightly more considered opinion: People are right to say that kids will leave regardless of academy status if they want the kudos of playing for Arsenal/Man U etc rather than actually playing first team football. What would make me happier is if the Pozzos had framed the decision in terms of rejecting the arbitrary nature of the cat 1 rules. As someone else said, they equate money & coaches with success, not looking at what a club does with the money it has. HOWEVER, I think the next year or two is key. If Zola continues to blood youngsters and keep the club as an attractive destination for youth players then we may find the club has saved several million & hasn't suffered. Otherwise, we've become a farm for Udinese. And that's not really something I'm prepared to back, if i'm honest.
Also needs to be made clear just how near to impossible it is to make the EPPP work for clubs like us, too.
Murray was 8, Doyley was 10. 25 out of the 50 graduates that have made their first team debut were signed before the age of 11. However basically all of the 50 were signed from local clubs, so the need for a higher category to poach players from other regions isn't really there. I imagine there will also be some sort of creative solution to the threat of poaching from other teams, and I also don't think that we will be a category 3 club forever. In short, it doesn't look great at all, but I don't think that we'll suffer.
