To think the majority of kids can get into "invite only" football development programmes

@Lucyccfc68 there will be a lot of differences I suspect. Our paid for academy was heads and tails above grassroots. Coaches were all ex pros. Coaches at grassroots tend to be enthusiastic volunteers! Not knocking grassroots at all....three boys from our grassroots side have been taken in by professional clubs so talent will shine through. But the offer at our academy is heads and tails above grassroots. Kids are provided with stats sport equipment so they get post match analysis data. All matches are filmed and then shared with kids with individual tasks to review elements of own performance and challenges set accordingly, get 3 hours of coaching per week on outstanding facilities (football and futsal on different nights to develop different parts of the game), free pre season pre camps etc. Lots of difference! But I know not every academy will be the same, so I guess it's a case of doing your research and feeling like you are getting bang for your buck!

The young kids I know in academies are really good! I know a seven year old who is so good I actually think he’ll probably make it. He’s already playing in the youth team of some premiership clubs. Otherwise it tends to be local academies and then there are the ones where the parents pay - those I suspect are the ones where the parents are getting smoke blown up their arse.

Of course they can call it what they want, but that’s where they are trying to con some parents, who are daft enough to believe it actually is an academy. The ‘Pro academies’ don’t use that term either. They are just ‘Academies’ and that’s where the paid ones are trying to make out they are something they are not.

Not all these paid ‘academies’ are any better than a normal grassroots club. I used to see plenty of normal grassroots clubs beat these so called academy teams all the time. If you find a great coach and your kids develop and really enjoy themselves, that is great, but let’s not kid ourselves that they are in anyway academies or elite. They are grassroots football that parents pay extra for.

@bluefrog11 That makes sense, thank you for responding. Time will tell if he is good enough AND wants it enough. Who knows? I am certainly not going to force it. It has to come from the child themselves. For now as you say, the main thing is that football is giving him a lovely childhood with his friends and I think he will look back on those memories fondly.

I was surprised to discover that there is a boarding school that specialises in football. In Leicestershire I think. Has that ever produced any professional players.

Dd went to a football after school programme run by the local pro team (then premiership) and they gave her a trial for their academy - well it certainly wasn't free to attend, not until you actually signed which was year 7, she was year 2! A nice little earner to help fund their teen development programme. We didn't fall for that, they charged twice as much as a grassroots nearby club.

@Lucyccfc68 but they can call their business whatever they like. It is a football academy! Might not be a pro club academy but it's literally a description for a place of education of some type. Weird thing for people to get het up over!

Where we live it’s pre academy football that quite a few kids do, they call it PDC or ADC
I think
(ADC being advanced development centre)
kids have to go to a trial to get a space and then if successful have to pay to attend and pay for the kids kits etc, it’s not a proper academy but I think kids and parents like the kudos of saying their child has been selected for it, at least it seems that way here.
it’s definitely not very exclusive though as at least half a dozen children in my child’s school year attend.

The point that people are making is the ‘paid’ Academy wasn’t an ‘Academy’, but they called themselves that.

No one has an issue with parents paying more or extra for something they think is value for money or worthwhile. If your son benefited from it and enjoyed it, that’s great.

It’s parents paying for this type of service and saying ‘my lad plays for an academy’ when they don’t.

@Ihavenoclu if he’s good enough he’ll still be good in two or three years when he’s more grown up. Very few boys last if they are picked up young so just let him enjoy his football. Scouts constantly visit all the local tournaments (in the hope of a big pay day!) so he’ll get picked up later if he’s good enough

My son is at a pro club academy now, but prior to this played grass roots and a paid academy. I wasn't gullible and being suckered in to paying for something that was a con in terms of the academy. It was a really high quality product with great training, ethos and personal development embedded into it. Lots of great opportunities for the kids, including some fab overseas trips. I have no doubt a lot of his development at the academy led to him being picked up by a pro club (which has no cost attached)

In terms of "invite only" at the academy, this was just a statement of fact. We had 12 boys in the age group selected for the invite team and many other kids of the same age played in different groups based on ability. Doesn't cost any more to be in the invite only group. So for me, not a con. At the end of the day, it's a product, provided by a business, which I assessed for value and found it to be worth it. Just like any service you might chose to buy

I understand that the JPL is a league and not an academy. My son spent a season refereeing across U14-16 in the JPL. It was set up to try and bridge the gap between grassroots and professional academies. However it does, unfortunately attract a lot of the clubs who call themselves academy or elite. They usually are better standard teams because the coaches cherry pick the better players.

In my experience it was definitely worse than the normal grassroots leagues/teams for toxic coaches and parents who ‘brag’ that their kid plays for an (fake) academy.

This is what my dh says. It happened to him when he was young.

I am not from the uk so not at all sure how it works and my eldest is not into football. My youngest is though and we have been approached twice by a 'scout' for him to trial (at a 'proper' club, again not sure what it is called). My ds coach was really disappointed when I said no, not interested. My ds is tiny, early primary and young for his year. He loves football more than anything in the world. But thats the thing, he loves it because he plays with his classmates. He loves it for the friendships. He loves it as it makes him feel good about himself. He is really good and so I guess it is nice for him to feel like that. I can't help but think that sitting in traffic for hours several times a week to play under really intense pressure will kill his love and joy pretty fast. But what do I know? Perhaps I should 'encourage' it. Perhaps I am letting him down?

I just can't bear the thought of being in such a competitive environment.

So for example there’s a squad of 20 players but the academy know maybe 1 or 2 will make it, the other boys are kept on to make up the numbers so there is a team to play in

DH has always said this. It's sad that they discard teens when they're about to do GCSE exams & have missed out socially. We're lucky we never got beyond U9s with it all.

My husband runs an academy team and he says it’s nothing like it used to be.. however the academy team he runs is an actual known one that people do work their backsides off to be selected by but he says there’s so many ‘Mickey mouse teams’ about now calling themselves academies

Don’t agree with the comments about Junior Premier League though. In my area this isn’t an academy but an actual league that the teams play in. All sorts of teams play in it (usually quite good ones and some lower level professional academies too) - my son plays in the JPL league. The coaches for the team he plays for actively discourage the sort of behaviour discussed on here and also don’t agree with pro-academy signings for anyone under 12. Parents get marked for their behaviour at every game, and sportsmanship and turning up for training on time is more important than winning.

My son also plays grassroots Sunday stuff and that’s where I’ve seen the worst behaviour TBH, from the kids and the parents.

If your kids are around age 6-8 it’s absolute hell getting through football because of all the knobs convinced their kids are the next Harry Kane. Academies go for quantity at this age - the majority don’t make it through the 8 week taster course (but by that time their parents have put it all over Facebook that their kid will be a pro footballer). Academies have no way of knowing (apart from the few exceptional kids) what sort of footballer a kid who is 7 will be when they are 16. The academy system for kids is a brutal game - which is why it’s banned below low teens in many progressive European countries. And less than 1% of academy kids will play ANY level of pro football. Just ride it out, it’s bullshit.

If you have to pay, then it’s not an ‘Academy’ and there’s nothing ‘elite’ about it. The only real academies are those where kids get scouted by a professional club and everything is provided free by the club.

I find there is a massive difference between the behaviour and attitude of coaches and parents at a professional academy and those that charge (but are just a bit better standard than your usual grassroots, as the coaches just cherry pick some of the better than average players).

My lad is a referee and has done games at Premier League Academies and he is treated with huge respect from the coaches and the parents are absolutely not allowed to shout instructions to their kids or shout at the referee.

Grassroots and definitely JPL are totally different, especially JPL. It’s so toxic and full of people who think their kids are the next Foden or Saka because they pay £50 a month for them play for a fake Academy. I stopped my lad reffing in the JPL it was that bad. Plenty of times I had to report abusive coaches and parents.

It’s strange because he now referees adult football and even when he was only 16 and reffing 22 hairy-arsed blokes, it was still better than the JPL and so called Academies. No parents to deal with and there may have been lots of swearing on the pitch, but at the end if was usually hand shakes all round and a ‘well done ref’.

My 8 year old is in the academy and he’s only one of two kids from his school. We now know lots of other parents as we all seem to move in the same footballing circles. The trials for academy are quite savage and I’m sure my other 2 footballing sons wouldn’t make it through.

I think the potentially huge financial rewards for top football players, and even the more modest rewards at a relatively junior level, provide a much greater incentive for parents to be focused on pushing their children to do well at the expense of the fun side, especially the boys, than is the case for other sports.

Sadly, those rewards are only for a tiny percentage of players and as PPs have said, the rest are discarded, often at a stage where it is hard to move into other fields.

Rugby is very different from football though they don't start playing with proper rules ie pushing in the scrum, lifting for line outs etc until U15s+.

The majority of Dd's team came to rugby after trying it during PE at secondary school, or the ones that have been at it from a younger age had older siblings or parents that were involved. Football seems like more of a sport anyone would enrol into regardless of family history or other connection.

Rugby is an interesting comparison BridasShieldWall, I’ve assumed the later timings of it was around the physical maturity of players. I’ll look for the podcast

Interesting the previous comments on the age when children are picked up for true academies in football. I was listening to a Ross Tucker podcast about the pathway into rugby at county and country level. The programmes need to allow children to come through at later and different ages as children mature at different rates. I assume this is due to children generally coming to rugby later than football plus rugby requires, particularly in front row positions, a specific build. Ross also had a lot on how to develop children and it’s focusing on developing skills and tactics etc and winning or losing can be incidental to these.

My oldest son knows 2/3 children with the potential to compete or play at county and country level as adults in sports other than football. All the parents are really level headed about the reality of achieving this, the likelihood of making it plus risk of injury etc. they are supportive and have driven them for training and all over the country for matches, competitions etc but ensure their children have a balance with other parts of their life including friends and school. Even with that support there is a lot of pressure on those children on the elite pathways re training, health, etc.

My dc isnt into football. She competes regionaly in one sport, but will never compete beyond that level. She does about 6 hours a week - so a LOT - at 11 yo.
But surely ALL "normal level" childrens sports & activities are either run by businesses (so you have to pay a lot) or volunteers (so you have to pay a bit but also help out).
If the business is offering more hours and dc want more hours (and parents can pay!)... and the hours are halfway reasonable (eg 5 hours a week not 50 hours a week!), then Im not sure why its such a bad thing.
Obviously having dc impacing their education, social life, family life & parents jobs when theyre just "making up the numbers" is awful.