Youth development

[Screwe Alexander]

Some worrying sounding tweets coming out of the AGM tonight about the youth development squad.

To summarise
1) Funding has been withdrawn from next season onwards
2) WST putting on £85k to make up the shortfall
3) we will get NO compensation for players moving to a EP3 (??) club
4) Youth team will be based at Lex and Morgan Llwyd while Colliers is being upgraded.

I hope I'm wrong and it'ss hard to understand the full implications from a few short tweets but none of this sounds good, it fact it sounds bloody awful and makes me question what is the point of having youth development while we're out of the football league.

[Junior Shabadoo]

It's very worrying; the rules are totally stitching us up. The fact that money is being directed to youth after this development is a rare piece of good news though; given the total failure of our first team only approach I wouldn't mind more going to youth (including more focus on released 16/17 year olds - we don't seem to go there) with the express intention of it providing a set number of first team squad places at the end of the process, for better or worse.
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[Screwe Alexander]

It's not more money though, it's money we were previously getting from the football league by the sound of it.

Is £85k pa value for money to invest in youth development when we have seen virtually no young players making the grade in the first team for years.

[podders]

And we are no longer allowed to receive compensation so no money to be made from our kids?!?
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[Junior Shabadoo]

Originally Posted by Screwe Alexander

It's not more money though, it's money we were previously getting from the football league by the sound of it.

Is £85k pa value for money to invest in youth development when we have seen virtually no young players making the grade in the first team for years.

Because we've used young players as a cash cow we haven't got value from those who stayed; they aren't the valued players. If the club is investing its own money into this part of the club, which the club admitted it wasn't before, then if anything we have to do more with those players. If we can't sell them then we'll undoubtedly lose some for hee haw but we must be moving to a model where the youth system must provide value or it will be axed. Plenty I've read on here says that money is but one problem; if we invest club money but add the other things we've missed then a negative could (that's could, not will) become a positive. If we take that 85k, scrap the youth and give all that money to the next Nicky Deverdics then who are we exactly? No better than the Crusaders team who found themselves here at very short notice but provided no meaning to people round here.
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[GiggityGiggityGiggityGoo]

Nice 3 year strategy, amazing that WPL clubs who get just shy of £30k a year in funding from the FAW have better youth setups than us.

Excuse after excuse, some clubs will and do payout for players regardless of rules in place.

If they can't be ar*ed seeking sponsorship or replying to clubs who are offering compensation despite not having to, what's the point?

Shambles!

[tokyored]

[QUOTE=GiggityGiggityGiggityGoo;2156232
If they can't be ar*ed seeking sponsorship or replying to clubs who are offering compensation despite not having to, what's the point?

Shambles![/QUOTE]

Sponsorship definitely needs sorting but which players does the 2nd part refer to? Up until this season clubs didn't have any choice but to pay compensation (and most still do have to).

[Screwe Alexander]

Originally Posted by Junior Shabadoo

Because we've used young players as a cash cow we haven't got value from those who stayed; they aren't the valued players. If the club is investing its own money into this part of the club, which the club admitted it wasn't before, then if anything we have to do more with those players. If we can't sell them then we'll undoubtedly lose some for hee haw but we must be moving to a model where the youth system must provide value or it will be axed. Plenty I've read on here says that money is but one problem; if we invest club money but add the other things we've missed then a negative could (that's could, not will) become a positive. If we take that 85k, scrap the youth and give all that money to the next Nicky Deverdics then who are we exactly? No better than the Crusaders team who found themselves here at very short notice but provided no meaning to people round here.
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Long gone are the days of our famed youth system. Are we keeping it out of nostalgia or do we genuinely think it is still a viable business model because I've seen very little to support the latter in recent years.

[Bissell]

Originally Posted by Screwe Alexander

Long gone are the days of our famed youth system. Are we keeping it out of nostalgia or do we genuinely think it is still a viable business model because I've seen very little to support the latter in recent years.

We used to be able to keep hold of some of our promising youngsters.

In recent years though, they have mostly been sold off by age 14.