Any 15- or 16-year-olds who should be revising for their mock GCSEs are probably finding that the end of December is a testing time of year. For those in academy football, it can often be make or break. While the very best – such as Arsenal’s record-breaking Max Dowman, who made headlines in October when he agreed terms on a scholarship deal – secured their futures in good time, many discovered their fates just before the 31 December deadline.
“It’s always the sort of classic breakup. It’s not you, it’s us,” says Dr Chris Platts, who has studied the academy system for more than a decade and offers support to young players and their families. “Being released before Christmas isn’t nice for a kid. Then they’ve got about five months before their GCSEs and those five months are now going to include a lot of trials and uncertainty going into the following year.”
While about 50% of players will have left academies by the time they turn 16, clubs are typically given funding from the Department for Education to cover eight scholarships every year. But with competition for young players having become fiercer than ever given the restrictions placed on clubs by Brexit that exclude them from signing players from Europe until they are 18, there is usually a scramble for those who do not quite make the grade in the elite category one academies.
The Premier League’s under-16s tournament in late October that was won by Arsenal at St George’s Park this year always attracts a number of scouts eager to sign up any potential bargains. “That has a knock-on effect for kids who are 14 or 15 at category two,” Platts says. “I think that’s become more of a strategy for academy directors.”
For those who are awarded scholarships, there is then what Nathan Chambers, who specialises in commercial and employment law for Onside Law and often works with academy players, describes as the minefield of signing a first contract. Dowman, who became the youngest player ever to appear in the Champions League in November and turned 16 on New Year’s Eve, is thought to have agreed a deal that includes lucrative terms for his first professional contract that will automatically begin in 12 months’ time. Until then, players on scholarship terms are restricted to a fixed salary of about £1,600 a month, although there can be exceptional cases such as Dowman when bonuses can be backdated so the player receives them when they turn 17.
“Most clubs have a range of what they pay unless you’re dealing with someone like Max or [Liverpool’s] Rio Ngumoha who are obviously outliers and then it becomes more of a negotiation,” says Chambers. “Otherwise most first-year pros are on a banded salary so there isn’t too much negotiation. But I still think it helps to have somebody explain this to you.”
Increasingly it is becoming common practice for most young players to be offered professional contracts of up to five years as part of their scholarship deals, although Chambers admits there can be drawbacks to committing for so long.
“Effectively it’s a way of securing them if they turn out to be a really good player,” he adds. “To the big clubs, the difference of paying seven to 15k [a week] is peanuts. So if they can lock down somebody on that wage and he then goes on to become a really good player then they’re in control. The battle really is over contract years – clubs want to tie players down for the longest time possible but the most ambitious players should want the opposite. They want to be freer quicker so they can get a better contract.”
Almost 98% of players who earn an academy scholarship at the age of 16 are still not playing in the top five tiers of English football within two years and Platts believes it is crucial that they are exposed to senior football as early as possible to stand a chance rather than becoming trapped in what he calls “the under-21 graveyard”.
“My approach would be, do the scholarship and then one year in the under-21s because you think there might be some physical development there,” he says. “By that point, if you’re being taken with the first team at 18, 19, if you’re a Myles Lewis-Skelly, it’s a different proposition. But if you’re just in the under-21s, you then need to go out on loan because you’re not going to be able to show the world how good you are.”
There is also a big decision for most players and their parents to take at this age when it comes to selecting an agent. While many, such as Dowman’s father, Rob, and Lewis-Skelly’s mother, Marcia, have taken up the gauntlet themselves to represent their sons, the race to snap up young talent is more competitive than ever. Recent changes to regulations now allow agents to approach players when they start the academic year that they will turn 16, even if in reality the process begins a lot earlier.
“The battle for academy players is won through contact and through time,” says Chambers. “Parents will go to the games so the agency will need to have a representative there as much as possible because they build relationships with the parents. They almost act a little bit like a guard dog so they stop other agents or they can intervene in certain conversations.
“But you’ve got what they call ‘the runners’ who go to the games from really young ages. I was invited by some parents to watch their boy at Chelsea in an under-13 game and there were agents there. It can be very overwhelming and that’s probably the number-one word that I hear when I speak to parents. The biggest area of concern is just making sure that you really understand what you’re signing.”
