SELLING talented young footballers to larger and wealthier English clubs is nothing particularly new for Hamilton Academical.
Accies have long had a renowned youth set-up - their academy is classified as elite by the SFA and their under-17 side qualified for the UEFA Youth League in 2018 and 2023 – as well as a proven track record for producing gifted players.
Greg Docherty (Rangers, Hull City, Charlton Athletic), Brian Easton (Burnley), Lewis Ferguson (Aberdeen, Bologna, Scotland), James McArthur (Wigan Athletic, Crystal Palace, Scotland) and James McCarthy (Wigan Athletic, Everton, Crystal Palace, Celtic, Republic of Ireland) have all, to name just a handful, emerged at New Douglas Park.
So when Cormac Daly, Gabriel Forsyth, Josh McDonald and Ryan One were snapped up by Nottingham Forest, Norwich City, Leeds United and Sheffield United respectively last year they were following a well-trodden path which had been taken by many of their predecessors.
There were, though, significant differences in their transfers. They were much younger and far less experienced than those who had exited before them. Indeed, of that teenage quartet, only Forsyth and One had featured in the first team.
For Hamilton manager John Rankin, who led his side to the Challenge Cup two seasons ago and to promotion from League One into the Championship via the play-offs last season, their sale highlighted a definite trend in the game.
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A trend that many concerned chairmen, chief executives and club owners are fearful will have devastating consequences for football in this country in future and could potentially lead to the closure of youth academies.
Namely, that English clubs are targeting Scottish players at a younger age than before and luring them south for less money than they paid previously.
“The days of kids coming in to the first team at 16 or 17, playing 100 or 150 games and then being sold for £1m or £2m are gone. Clubs down south build up their databases of young Scottish players from a very early age now. So when a kid makes his debut at 16 they have already watched him since he was 13 or 14. Then it becomes a case of a club getting £200,000 for a player who has maybe only played in the first team four or five times, if at all.”
Hamilton are by no means the only Scottish club to have their age-group teams plundered by southern raiders of late.
Ben Doak left Celtic for Liverpool and Kerr Smith and Rory Wilson signed for Aston Villa from Dundee United and Rangers respectively two years ago.
Lewis Pirie moved from Aberdeen to Leeds, Ethan Laidlaw departed Hibernian for Brentford, Murray Campbell went from St Mirren to Burnley and Jamie Newton swapped Rangers for Nottingham Forest last year.
This summer, Sebastian Lochhead and Ethan Sutherland joined Wolves from Dundee and St Mirren respectively, Brandon Forbes left Dundee United for Norwich City and Aidan Borland moved from Celtic to Aston Villa. There are many more.
Outstanding Scottish footballers have been heading down to England in search of higher wages and a better level of competition for decades now. But they had usually given the clubs which had discovered and developed them several years of service and proved themselves in the senior game before they did so. More often than not, they had been capped by their country. And it invariably required a sizable fee to secure their services.
So why are kids who have barely left school and who have hardly been involved in the first team at their club, in many cases who have not been involved at all, suddenly being targeted? For Dr Bill Gerrard, a professor of business management at Leeds Business School, the reason is obvious.
“Brexit has played a key role in the increased number of young Scottish players being signed by English clubs,” he said. “Brexit has put more restrictions on them signing young overseas players.
“They are no longer able to recruit players aged 16 and 17 from the EU and they have to be selective in the 18 to 21 age group. So they are being forced to focus exclusively on homegrown talent up until the age of 18.
“But the restrictions don't apply to young Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish players. English clubs have the financial power to attract the best players, not just experienced players, young players as well. I do think it also says something about the success of the academy system in Scotland in developing young players.”
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Dr Dan Parnell, the chief executive officer of the Association of Sport Directors, agrees with Dr Gerrard. However, he believes there are three factors behind the brawn drain.
“One, Scottish clubs develop talented young players,” said Dr Parnell. “Two, Brexit and the challenge of bringing in young foreign players to English clubs. Three, EPPP meaning it is very expensive for young players to move between English clubs. It is going to cost seven figure sums to move players who are 16, 17 and 18. It is an unintended consequence of EPPP.”
EPPP? “Elite Player Performance Pathway,” added Dr Parnell. “The Premier League has introduced quality standards in the English academy system.
“That is designed to improve the provision for academy players and increase the talent coming through the pipeline which the Premier League is based on. It has been done to make things better for the kid, so they have the best education, the best experience. But if a club pays money for all of that they need to protect their investment in case a kid has to move clubs.
“So the Premier League also increased the compensation for young players moving between English clubs. Now, even if it is an under-13 player who moves, the club that has developed the player receives a fee. It could be between £30,000 and £90,000. It is based on their age and the number of years they have spent at a club.
“But that means by the time a player reaches 16, 17, 18, the cost could be £1m or £2m because of how much money has been invested in them. To get a 21-year-old in England, it might cost between £6m and £8m for that reason. Players who haven’t had first team minutes are also being paid a bit more than before. That creates a little bit of a problem. To get a player from Scotland, they are having to pay a lower transfer fee and lower wages.”
“They have access to incredible facilities, they have good support staff and they get well remunerated,” the former said. “They get the opportunity to play and if they do well then they can feature in the first team. The Scottish club which developed them will also be able to make money from sell-on fees.
“It might be the case that a club could get £1m or £2m for a 21-year-old after they have made 100 appearances. But if they are getting offered £200,000 for a 16-year-old it is still a good deal for them. There is no guarantee the player will make their first team. This is a challenging period for Scottish football clubs. They can’t turn that money down.”
The latter said: “There is the financial side of things, the wages English clubs can offer these young kids. Then there is the sports science they are exposed to when they move, the nutrition advice they get, the coaching they receive, the quality of player they are playing with and against, all that kind of stuff. Sorry, but clubs in Scotland just can’t compete with that.”
However, Rankin, the former Ross County, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Hibernian, Dundee United, Falkirk, Queen of the South and Clyde midfielder who is a one-time PFA Scotland chairman, offers an important caveat.
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“Game time is so important,” he said. “It is all about game time. I worked with Aaron Hickey when he was coming through at Hearts. He was determined he was going to play games before he left rather than leaving as an inexperienced 16-year-old who hadn’t played many games.
“Sometimes you see players leaving Scotland and going down to England after only playing a handful of first team games. But they become an under-18 player and have to try to force their way into the first team again. Sometimes that becomes hard for them psychologically.
“Games is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what level you are playing at, as long as you are playing. Playing games is definitely beneficial to a player’s development.”
Therein lies the rub. Borland, the 17-year-old Scotland Under-19 striker, made his Aston Villa debut in their Carabao Cup win over Wycombe Wanderers last month. One enjoyed a brief cameo for Sheffield United against Wrexham in the same competition in August. Forsyth has made five appearances and two starts, including one in the Championship against Blackburn Rovers, for Norwich. So teenage exports can potentially grasp their opportunity and flourish.
But there is a very real danger that Scottish players who go down south at an early age may not progress at what is a critical stage in their development in the same way that they would have if they had remained in their homeland because of the lack of first team opportunities available to them and could ultimately be lost to the game.
How many young Scottish players have left a Premiership club academy for one at a Premier League club in the past decade and then gone on to play in the first team and establish themselves as regulars with their country at full international level? Billy Gilmour, who moved from Rangers to Chelsea after he turned 16 in 2017, is the only one.
Would it not be wiser for them to follow the route which current national squad members like Ryan Christie (Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Aberdeen, Celtic, Bournemouth), John McGinn (St Mirren, Hibernian, Aston Villa), Kenny McLean (St Mirren, Aberdeen, Norwich City), Andy Robertson (Queen’s Park, Dundee United, Hull City, Liverpool) and John Souttar (Dundee United, Hearts, Rangers) took?
Stuart McKinstry, the Scotland Under-17 winger who left Motherwell for Leeds United in 2019, played against Spurs in the Premier League during his time at Elland Road. But he returned to Fir Park on loan last year, joined Queen’s Park after his contract wasn’t renewed and is currently without a club.
A recent European Club Association study on the impact of early migration looked at the experiences of 1,223 players who had left for a club in another country between the ages of 16 and 17. They found that only 13.1 per cent of them had played in the first team by the age of 23. Furthermore, they discovered that just 23 of them had managed to take part in more than 50 games.
Dr Parnell revealed that English clubs might not always be signing Scottish kids because they believe they have the ability to make the step up into their first team at some point in the future.
“They might just be there to fill a spot in an age-group squad for a few years. That doesn’t sound nice, it sounds horrible in fact. Nobody wants to admit to it. But sometimes they just need numbers. Scottish players are the cheap option. Practically, pragmatically and financially, it is what they need to do. The natural place to go is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to an extent. They have to look outside of England because of EPPP.”
Hamilton were certainly grateful for the training compensation fees which they received for Daly, Forsyth, McDonald and One during these challenging economic times. The departure of four of their best prospects does, though, present them with issues. They may be deprived of the kind of homegrown footballer they have enjoyed such success with over the years further down the line.
“For that to continue could be problematic,” said Rankin. “We need to work hard and make sure the next batch who come through are ready to take their opportunity in the first team when it comes. But it is difficult. You don’t get a conveyer belt of talent, don’t always have kids coming through who are ready to make the step up.”
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The Brexit brawn drain has also got potentially devastating ramifications for the entire academy system in Scotland because Premiership clubs are not producing first team players or making the same amount of money from the sales of their most successful alumni.
One senior executive at a top flight club I spoke to this week suggested that clubs may even start to question why they are spending millions of pounds every year on youth development when they are operating at a significant loss.
“Brexit has been the trigger for this,” he said. “Up until we came out of the EU in 2020, English clubs were able to effectively shop all across the Shengen Area for talent. Their academies could have their pick of Italian, French, Spanish, Danish players, whatever. However, post-Brexit, their market has shrunk considerably.
“Now the only areas they are likely to get players from are Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scottish players have gone from being 10th, 15th, 20th on the list of targets which English clubs have to being to now being first, second and third. So academies in Scotland have faced a new threat.
“The best of our young talent is being scouted aged 13, 14 and 15. When they turn 16 these English clubs try very hard to persuade them not to sign for Kilmarnock, St Johnstone, St Mirren, whoever, but to sign a scholarship contract with them. They are paying the players far more money than they would get in Scotland, as much as six, seven, eight times the salary. In one case, it was 10 times more.
“I am not exaggerating here, this issue is becoming an existential threat to some academies. The reality is that Premiership clubs are ploughing in millions of pounds, literally millions, to run their academy every year. If they are losing their best players for £120,000 when they turn 16, you don’t need to be a graduate of Harvard Business School to realise the financials don’t add up.
“Running an academy is a front-loaded cost. Clubs invest for years and years in the hope that the cash will come back to them via a player sale. You hope you can sell him for a significant amount of money and justify the process.
“But if, rather than getting £3m or £4m for a player when they are 19, 20, 21, you get £100,000 for them at 16 then the model doesn’t stack up. Football clubs are far more cost aware than they were in the past, so they are going to start looking to make some really difficult decisions.”
“They look at clubs ruthlessly, as a business opportunity. They don’t have the same moral obligation to the sport, the same desire to bring through young players for the good of the Scottish game. They are looking at how they can make a club profitable and successful in the short term.
“It is becoming harder to justify running academies. Even with local owners who love and support the clubs they own, it is harder to justify. So how are guys who see clubs as limited companies going to view things?
“Brexit has created a set of trading conditions which is not conducive to clubs seeing the youth development process through from start to finish. I fear there are clubs in Scotland who may take some harsh decisions in years to come and that doesn’t benefit anyone in the country, not least the national team.”
