The Night Watchman

These days youths get a bad rap. The days of the $600k capable 19 year old are receding firmly into the memory of even experienced veterans and increasingly having a top quality youth set-up is seen as an extravagance that can be ill afforded. This perspective – that the youth setup does not pay its way – is a viewpoint that holds some merit.

Over the past few seasons in FTP there has been grade inflation and skill cost deflation to the point that 20 year old graduating youths (of accomplished/accomplished level) are averaging about $200,000. The matter is compounded by the players who previously graduated having gained more training and experience; so more recent graduates of youth teams are less likely to gain a first team place in either the owners side or elsewhere. 20 year olds just aren’t good enough to get into most first teams, especially those of the richest and best clubs – who are the clubs which drive the transfer prices and push up the prices of some players into the multiple millions of dollars.

This raises the question of whether the youth setup is to die a death. An economist will explain the rules of supply and demand, and that where supply is small and demand large (or if not large, unfulfilled) then prices rise. Where price rises, so supply increases. That is the theory.

However I have my doubts as to whether that will translate into FTP practice. A side may run a mediocre youth academy, and produce reliable/reliable youths instead of accomplished/accomplished – however these may make up that extra level by being shipped into a better senior academy. So there may be no particular shortage of players in FTP (by no youths being trained) and early training deficits may be overturned later. Theory dictates that the price for 20 year old accomplished/accomplished players should increase – but that presupposes that these players are in demand – yet as I stated earlier these players aren’t first teamers for any established side, so demand is really quite limited.

All this sounds very bleak. The athletic promising youth you saw at a distance has turned into a morass of spots and BO once you start looking closer. Is this the end for youth academies? Will the youth competitions become ever weaker as teams concentrate more on seniors – a process not helped by prize money being substantially smaller for youths.

The answer is there is still money and progress to be made from youth teams. But it isn’t easy money; he that goes half-heartedly is probably better not going at all. The amateur, as the analysis earlier shows clearly, will lose their shirt. The way to make the youth system work is a combination of a top level academy (luxurious/deluxe) and having top class youths. Youth teams have become a professional business.

You see, the best youth players still attract cash – and lots of it. Older established sides have players who are getting toward their sell-by date, and are looking around for replacements. But they won’t buy the 20 year old accomplished/accomplished or reliable/reliable. Top quality young players whose skills have been super trained can compete with oldies, or compete passably enough; and everyone recognises that their older players aren’t going to last forever and that at some point they are going to have to plan for the future (accepting a few compromises along the way). A very high skill set for the age of the player may for example make a potential purchaser think twice about buying the 3 year older player with the same skills but more experience. Just as a few years down the line these players will attract the top prices, so they will (at a reduced level) as top notch youth graduates.

My youth academy costs $85,000 a week – approximately 4x the average investment in England. With an average of 20 youths every 4 seasons (each training between 16 and 20) that costs $5.1m or $255,000 each in training, without even considering the cost of salaries or purchase prices. Yet there is still life in the FTP economy yet. Top sides are still pulling in big gates, lots of prize money, and their players get heaps of experience and are still valuable when they reach relatively geriatric ages to mid level sides pushing for promotion or needing a star. So they can sell the oldies to bring in some funds too. These top level clubs then, at the time of writing, can afford to splash out for the top youths; and as time has gone on and more teams bailed out of youths, the number of top youths has decreased driving prices through the roof.

So far most of the analysis has been wordy if fairly convincing, but with only a smattering of figures in support. Consider the evidence now. I just sold a 19 year old fast bowler in week 1 of the season as an expert/accomplished for a fee of $3.3 million. Sure Karpinnen (the player in question) will go on to become one of the greats of FTP and will pull in heaps of cash in prizemoney for his new owner – but he also suddenly made my youth setup very profitable indeed. He isn’t an isolated example; consider Andrew Flower ($1.84m) or Derek Seccombe ($1.6m). Even relative busted flushes (the players who weren’t stellar world beaters) such as Bourne ($420k) and Abdul ($400k) assist in balancing the books. The real drop-outs who were fairly bad pulls graduate from a great youth set up looking much better than they deserve, and bring in mediocre prices (Maqsood $231k, Yalamanchi $214k, Jones $62k which make matters more profitable. While they didn’t cover their costs, these bad players (for which you receive some money) are better than nothing and the losses are covered by the stunners ten fold. This of course assumes you can’t find 20 $600k youths to fit in your academy… but I certainly don’t have either the luck or money to manage that, and I doubt the reader does either!
In conclusion then, in the present time of a maturing FTP world the youth setup has changed and developed. It has become a place of elitism and the amateurs are increasingly marginalised. He who wishes to profit, as in all business, must show commitment throwing both feet first into the venture. Yet as ever, one must look before leaping. The question for youth trainers extraordinaire is whether the top sides will see wage pressure cut their demand for great youths thereby turning the youth setup into a complete ghost town and wrecking their investment strategy. Oh for a crystal ball….

Written by YorkshirePudding