Lostboy takes a look at investment in youth football. 

Anyone remember late in 2008 when Wayne Rooney was rolled out for the launch of yet another PR exercise for one of huge corporate multi-nationals in a bid to convince us to buy their product because, by association and spending a couple of quid, they really want to help develop young talent? It was called “Find the next Wayne Rooney”. Nope? Nor me until I started writing this!

I was particularly keen to read this when it came up on the home page all those years ago as I have been involved with youth football for over 12 years. Imagine my disappointment then when I find that all it involves is us (the consumer) buying vast quantities of their sugar-a-like fizzy pop and then having to visit a dedicated website to enter a code to be chance of being included in a draw to get £25,000 for your club. "Great" I thought, what my YFC could do with £25k! But no, the only chunk of cash that the youth football club would see would be if I donated the £1k individual prize, the £25k must be allocated to a current league club. Indeed you were required to register the lucky recipient (hopefully!) when you go onto their website. This left me a little frustrated, why?

Well lets assume that by a miracle, my name is drawn and the Saints receive "my" £25k, where does it go? Well in common with every other clubs academy (in fact better than most, after all we constantly produce top quality players) we scout the nation and the continent for decent youth product. But as we've seen recently at all levels of most clubs this includes very few homegrown, home developed, talent. Why? Because the clubs will take the cream of talented youngsters from a huge pool as there isn’t perceived to the talent locally, thus overlooking the potential of genuinely local young players. So how do we overcome it? This wouldn’t have changed should Saints have got my £25k, they'd have spent it on airmiles and diesel to get their scouts out in the wider world. So how on earth do we change this mentality?

Give the Coca-Cola thousands to YOUTH FOOTBALL CLUBS!

Now please don't get me wrong, I am certainly not decrying this particular company's efforts. In fact they have genuinely supported youth football over the years, from their Soccer Skills scheme through to discounted kit (branded mini-soccer goals etc). But surely the failure to have found “the next Wayne Rooney” means that it is now even more important for English football and Coca-Cola to say "well, we keep saying there's not sufficient playing or coaching talent – let’s spend some money on training some then!" Get the money into the youth football clubs on the basis of it being spent on coaching courses for youth team managers, kit (strips, cones, hurdles, ladders etc; particularly important as the coaches will now know how to use them!), fee subsidies (how many players slip through the net because they genuinely can't afford club membership and training fees?) and so on.

This then gives us the quandary of who deserves the money, who provides the best coaching and whether the current system of Youth Football actually works. But that’s another discussion for another time, let’s get the principle agreed first!

So thanks for your continued interest in football Coca-Cola, regardless of how it may help your market penetration! But can we aim the money at where it will develop a much bigger pool of talent from which the clubs are able to drawr? Starting at my YFC would be good :)

Photo: Action Images via Reuters