New rules format.

[Hibs Soldier]

New cooperation system and Challenge Cup format approved | SPFL

Plans to accelerate elite player development passed

spfl.co.uk

 

[Glenmore Road]

As Tsar of Scottish or UK football, my first decree would be to ban every professional club from having underage teams and to ban any organised collaboration between professional clubs and the youth f.c. outfits where kids would be required to play.
No child would be allowed to sign with a professional club until their 18th birthday.
Professional clubs affiliated to the SFA / FA, in conjunction with organisations handing-out Lottery funds, would be required to contribute extensively towards the running costs of the youth f.c. outfits.

 

[Purple & Green]

Don’t see how this will make things better.

In fact it seems to me for a way for coaches and clubs to be absolved of development scrutiny.

It’s the competition! It’s the lack of opportunity to play for two teams in a season.

No it’s not.

It’s something fundamentally wrong at the club.

 

[egb_hibs]

As Tsar of Scottish or UK football, my first decree would be to ban every professional club from having underage teams and to ban any organised collaboration between professional clubs and the youth f.c. outfits where kids would be required to play.
No child would be allowed to sign with a professional club until their 18th birthday.
Professional clubs affiliated to the SFA / FA, in conjunction with organisations handing-out Lottery funds, would be required to contribute extensively towards the running costs of the youth f.c. outfits.

I’d go for 16 but aside from that bang on.

That said, from what I have seen the English clubs do it far better but then they have the money. Been to a few of their academies watching egb jr and they would put lads in a good private school and even if they got binned from the club, would fund their education until completion.

Obviously impossible for those outside the OF up here - Celtic do something similar I believe, at least for some.

 

[Purple & Green]

Don’t know the percentage of players who sign a professional contract out all players.

I’d guess 1/1000 maybe 1/10000 whatever doesn’t really matter just gives the reality of the odds.

Let’s delve into someone going into Hibs system.


I’m guessing it’s something like this:

Out of every 10 players maybe 1 signs a pro contract.

Out of every 10 players who sign a pro contract maybe 1 signs a second one. This is the key area - these are the first team players.

So ergo out of every 100 players that go into the Hibs youth system, 1 becomes an established first teamer.

That’s broadly similar for all Scottish clubs I’d guess - with an acknowledgement that many from the Celtic academy become first teamers elsewhere.

So how do clubs abroad have much higher percentage success figures - the obvious examples are the basque clubs in Spain who have virtually entire squads from their youth academy, pulling from areas with a population of less than one million, and competing at the top end of the Spanish top tier?

It’s not because the play more challenge cup group games against semi pro postmen.

 

[Greenmachine]

We need to do something radical that's for sure.
What did we do right in the 60's 70's and 80's that we are not doing now ?
Learn from successful small countries similar to Scotland, what do they do right that we do wrong ?

 

[Hammi]

As Tsar of Scottish or UK football, my first decree would be to ban every professional club from having underage teams and to ban any organised collaboration between professional clubs and the youth f.c. outfits where kids would be required to play.
No child would be allowed to sign with a professional club until their 18th birthday.
Professional clubs affiliated to the SFA / FA, in conjunction with organisations handing-out Lottery funds, would be required to contribute extensively towards the running costs of the youth f.c. outfits.

Not a bad way to go about it, but that age would need to come down.
English scouts would be all over the youth clubs and only a handful of Scottish clubs would stand a chance.

That's assuming the level of training at the youth clubs is sufficient. There's a big gap in technical training that needs bridged. Lifestyle, health, dietary.

Probably find the Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee clubs, Aberdeen would all subtly take over at certain youth clubs, become pathway clubs and maybe that would benefit everyone.
But I think that would get messy too.

I'm not sure how to fix it, but the gap between youth and pro at the actual pro clubs needs addressed.
I think the only way to really do that is improve the quality of the clubs below our top 15ish clubs.

That's where these players are going to go on loan and learn the game.
All these lads actually learn by playing in the second division is that they need to be stronger. The actual level of football is crap so they're not getting better.
Nobody goes on loan to England in their teens, which would be much, much better for them than going to Kelty or Spartans imo.
Nobody in the English premiership or championship gets sent to our lower leagues and expects to make it.

 

[Greenmachine]

We need to have proper reserve league like we used to have.
In the 70's, when I were a lad, my dad used to take me and my brother to see the reserves playing at Easter Road when the first team were away.
You would see young players coming through who went on to be established first teamers.

 

[Hibs Soldier]

We need to have proper reserve league like we used to have.
In the 70's, when I were a lad, my dad used to take me and my brother to see the reserves playing at Easter Road when the first team were away.
You would see young players coming through who went on to be well-known first teamers.

Be interesting to see what decline of youngster to first team chances are since the change in that set up.