Academy And Under-23s

Discussion in 'The Team Bus' started by wfc78, Aug 14, 2012.

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  1. Rostrons Red Card

    Rostrons Red Card Reservist

    Please calm down.

    We were never going to get Cat 1. It's a waste of money anyway.

    The whole thing is Scudamore PR *******s anyway, designed to allow Chelsea etc get players on the cheap.

    Anyone half decent will go to Udinese and get loaned back.
     
  2. phil_g1975

    phil_g1975 Academy Graduate

    Imagine a Press Release from the club stating the following:

    Watford to Exploit EPPP Loophole!

    Watford have decided to be a category 3 academy as its the cheapest and will have little or no effect of how Harefield is run. It means we are not in an under 21 league but we will arrange our own friendlies and can have a smaller squad of better quality players. There was no point being a cat 2 academy as we only intend to recruit young players from within the local vicinity and do not agree with poaching other clubs players.

    As Watford are restricted from signing any under 11 players under the EPPP rules, any under 11 players found will be signed by Udinese or Granada as european law doesn't prevent this. These players will then go to Harefield as normal. This also prevents any Category 1 academy from stealing our academy players for as little as £3k.

    At the time of deciding if to offer a pro-contract the registration will be transferred back to Watford.

    So in short we need to see what happens before getting all upset about it, if they do intend to do a work around the EPPP no press release is going to blatantly adverstise the fact at this stage in the proceedings.
     
  3. SouthernHornet

    SouthernHornet Reservist

    love that name
     
  4. nisman94

    nisman94 International Man of Mystery

    But the thing is that is what the pozzos want us to be. The only way they know to make a successful club is to be a selling club which makes this even more odd.
     
  5. North North Watford

    North North Watford First Year Pro

    Two key questions before I can judge what this means:

    1. What can't we do as a category three club, that we have been doing for the past few years?
    2. If the answer is "nothing" or "not much", does that mean that we intend to carry on roughly as we already are?

    It doesn't really matter to me whether our 16 year olds are being stolen for £62k or £212k, what's important is that our 16 year olds don't want to leave in the first place. Recently we have had a very good record of persuading our best youngsters to turn pro here, and what's important is that players coming through are just as good and continue to sign for us.
     
  6. Moosedog

    Moosedog Reservist

    I think your assesment of the value of the five players you mention is a little on the high side, I think Young was around 11 mil, Sordell 3 mil Bouazza 3,5 mil and Mariappa 2mil that leaves Murray, we won't get 5 mil for him. Of those five Sordell and Bouazza were not products of our academy one being released by Fulham and the other coming from France aged 17 or 18. Our academy although excellent and has produce 50 players that have played in the first team, it has not produced many quality players that could play in the Premier league and if the cost per year is 2.5 mil it cannot pay for itself. If as is hoped Premier league football comes to Watford in the next year or two how many of the present crop of players from the academy are going to be good enough to play, probably one so why run an academy to fill lower league teams
     
  7. North North Watford

    North North Watford First Year Pro

    £5 mil is ambitious but not ridiculous. It's not as if we're selling him tomorrow.
     
  8. El distraído

    El distraído Johnny Foreigner

    Racist.
     
  9. LLST

    LLST Squad Player

    Pot calling the kettle black? :naughty:
     
  10. What we need are premiership quality players. The academy is not going to provide that. It produces championship/L1/L2 talent which is as much use as a chocolate teapot. Wheras the Pozzo empire is stuffed to overflowing with young talent that is perfect for the task, and once mature can be sold for profit. For example Vydra is a dozensy million pound player if ever I saw one.
     
  11. North North Watford

    North North Watford First Year Pro

    He was calling it white to be fair.
     
  12. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    European law may not prevent it. Any ideas about the English FA, Italian FA, UEFA, FIFA, the Football League and the Premier League? Aside from anything else is there any system in place which permits 12 year old Italian-registered players to play for an English team? I sincerely doubt it.
     
  13. nisman94

    nisman94 International Man of Mystery

    Tbf that's the only decent argument for this move that I've seen. When i saw the bbc article saying that in the last 10 years (or 15 can't remember) 50 of our academy graduates have players in the first team, i remember questioning whether that was due to the quality or for necessity, of which I would say the latter. Linking to the pozzo network effectively ends the academy becoming a major influx of players into the first team (of which I am very sad for those academy youngsters) but for the club if we continue getting decent players (who are match fit) then it's fine. I'm not sure whether I'll still be able to take the loss of our identity though for a new transformation, but that's personal
     
  14. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Gary's law?

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    Those who want to go and watch an academy player has to give the club 48hrs notice that they are coming. If they decide to take him it's down to the player and his parents so there is no guarantee that he would leave it will just be a lot easier to poach players. The big teams win again
     
  16. LLST

    LLST Squad Player

    Do you wanna be in my Academy?
     
  17. telboy

    telboy Academy Graduate

    Read the official wfc site,Beleck and Geigo are not match fit ,and Abdi did not look fit last sat.
     
  18. ForzaWatford

    ForzaWatford Squad Player

    I wonder if Udinese has any idea about why Pozzo's have chosen to do this?

    Personally I think this is a duxbury/nani decision...
     
  19. North North Watford

    North North Watford First Year Pro

    It's worth pointing out that EPPP attaches a monetary value to children too young to work. The EPPP's applicability to under 12s is something that clubs in our position are likely to look into.
     
  20. Its the right business decision, and will have little if any impact on the success of the 1st team, but yes it is sad to see.
     
  21. telboy

    telboy Academy Graduate

    Can you prove those remarks?
     
  22. LLST

    LLST Squad Player

    Hence why there's a ?
     
  23. For heaven sake, if the Pozzos didn't have a good idea what they were taking on (the sale having been in process for best part of 6 months) then they have a good case against their financial advisors and lawyers for a start. I don't believe for a moment that 'massive debts' have come out of the blue to them.
     
  24. phil_g1975

    phil_g1975 Academy Graduate

    No idea at all - but as i don't run a football team i don't need to. One would hope the Pozzos do have an idea and if there are ways round it, i can't see the what the problem is. Its worth noting that when the EPPP rules were put in place the watford/udinese/granada scenario was not in place so its possible they didn't put in place rules to prevent us circumnavigating them. If they subsequently want to change the rules they will have to get agreement from all the clubs again in the same way they did before.
     
  25. Cassetti's Beard

    Cassetti's Beard First Team

    Haha, the West Ham fans may have been onto something.....
     
  26. LLST

    LLST Squad Player

    I'm just going on Duxbury's comments, why spend £2.5 million per year on something you don't need yet?
     
  27. PotGuy

    PotGuy Forum Fetishist

    Not getting Category One is understandable considering the immense cost. Few Championship clubs can afford that.

    To downgrade?! To put out heralded academy on par with bloody Gillingham?

    What a load of horse ****.

    EEEP may be one big cost-cutting exercise for the PL, but even so you have to think that our quality of coaching will drastically decrease as a result of this. I get that Cat Two is in some ways irrelevant as it doesn't provide any further protection against poaching, but what a kick in the teeth!
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2012
  28. SouthernHornet

    SouthernHornet Reservist

    only reason we aint cat 1 or 2 is cause we have to field a u21 team and we dnt have one
     
  29. Aberystwyth_Hornet

    Aberystwyth_Hornet Squad Player

    Maybe they think that we can develop lesser youngsters or rely on youth from abroad?

    Do either of the other Pozzo clubs develop their own home grown youngsters?
     
  30. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    I've had a little time to calm down now and having taken on board a few other comments. Harefield is not closing we're just not going to throw money at it. This is looked at every 2 years so if we were to be promoted in that time then maybe we look at it again. Anybody who thinks the Pozzo's were unaware of the level of debt must be nuts, of course they knew. They're aware we lose £4m a year and don't want to add another £2.5m to that for something we don't really need. I With the scouting network and the players at our disposal already we don't need to be cat 1. Any players now or those who come through the academy in the future will still be well looked after and schooled. I'm not sure this is anywhere close to being as bad as it sounds. Let's just get the season started so we can concentrate on football again and what I think will eventually be a good season
     
  31. Masada

    Masada First Year Pro

    Money talks, loyalty walks.

    The EPPP has - before it's even been born - totally wiped out Wycombe Wanderers youth set-up with doubtless more clubs to follow.
    It's just not worth the effort finding in finding a local gem now, the bounty is capped at circa £150,000, not the millions on offer prior to the EPPP. Worse, the quality of coaching will diminish given the Cat 1 clubs will (and have to) get the available cream (which is rare in the UK given our sad coaching deficit compared to the continent ) whilst the rest have to make do.

    So what does this mean for a real talent - get scouted by the guys in the bibs that now will legally and clearly display 'SCOUT' ,who will now be allowed to watch youth games. Not hide behind the tree.
     
  32. gloryhornhaz

    gloryhornhaz Reservist

    It's much better than the one that started last seasons first game at Burnley!
     
  33. R4E

    R4E Reservist

    How many times in the past have we received millions for a player under 16?

    The answer is never. Nothing is changing. The EPPP is money for nothing and we're better off out of it running Harefield the way we see fit. The difference in money a club is entitled to for young players is minimal between categories but the fees to be involved are anything but.

    Whatever category we are, few other clubs have as good a set up as us in Harefield and that isn't changing.
     
  34. SouthernHornet

    SouthernHornet Reservist

    i hate watford
     
  35. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    Not sure if this has been mentioned by others in this thread - I've only browsed through quickly. It is possible that they've decided in the short-term, it'd be better to spend the money on players to get us promoted and once we're in the Premier League and enjoying the massive windfalls that come with such a promotion, it'll be no problem to upgrade. I'd be shocked if they were to scrap Harefield completely, whilst playing the category 3 teams for a season won't really harm us too much in the long run, especially as the emphasis has always been focused on performances rather than results.

    Making the most of our links with Udinese and Granada to circumnavigate the rules is also a possibility, but again, we don't really know how this would/could work in practice.

    Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out. On the face of things, it seems bad, but that doesn't mean this is death of our ability to produce young players just yet. The true test for me will be what happens should we get promoted. If they are willing to fund the upgrade then, we'll have nothing to complain about. If they still keep us at category 3 status, it'll be obvious that they have a different path in mind for us.
     

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