My 10 year old nephew has a under 10’s contract for football academy- how important is this?

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As Above and my DB is over then moon as am I. DN works and trains really hard abd I hope this is the start of something big for him. It’s not exactly a top club, it’s division 2, but it seems like they take a lot if you gets on and they don’t all make it. I’ve known of a few kids who have been realised but they were a lot older, say 16/17/18.

I’m clueless about football but am I right to think this is big news for DN being so young, should I assume he must be really good to get signed to the academy?

I’m so proud of him and hope he gets to do his dream job as an adult but I’m thinking statistically the competition is so high. DB has got him signed off for a premier league club and I’m thinking if this doesn’t pan out there will be so many tears.

Any experience?

It's fabulous, well done to him.
But if it's under 10, surely they are all under 10 so getting picked up at that age can't be that unusual?
My local team is division one and quite a few of my DS's friends were picked up by their academy at primary age. All have been dropped. One got injured and missed a season and did not get renewed, one did not have the growth spurt at 13 that he needed and was dropped because there was someone better playing his position (that was a bit of bad luck as he was very good). Others just frittered away.
They did all continue to play school football though (not grass roots) and did very well as a school team, which was nice.

I worked with a lovely young man last year at school, doing gcses so a lot older. He’d had several offers from club academies and was in the fortunate position of being able to choose. He had his feet firmly on the ground though and was making sure his options were open, so considering studying as a physio or in sports business management. Interestingly his parents chose not to accept the under ten academy offers he received as they thought the pressure was too great.

I don’t think anyone’s saying otherwise, though. It’s more like warning an over-enthusiastic parent that just because their child got called for an audition off the back of the open casting call for the Harry Potter tv series they shouldn’t start thinking who their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame might be next to.

Football is such big business and talent scouting these days starts very young, because it makes financial sense to scoop up as much potential talent as possible at a very early stage, and discard as required en route. That means parents need to be very careful and realistic in their approach, because a 15 year old who thinks he’s going to make it in the PL being dropped and ‘failing’ at the only life he’s ever considered is a difficult thing to see.

Most sports have a talent stream approach now, so they take a bigger pool of kids and give them regular training and interventions. Their aim is to get the 1 or 2 really good kids who will go on to achieve and win. As long as you see it in that context, ensure he has wider groups of friends, has other interests, plays another sport, keeps up with school work.

@XelaM statistically someone has to make it and all credit to the children who do for their hard work and dedication. An older child at one of my children’s school is a professional player and obviously the younger children look at him and dream big. It is probably the same odds as winning the lottery.

The fact is when you watch professional players, even in the premier league, many of them aren’t stand out amazing. You realise it is talent, dedication and quite a large amount of luck! (Plus family connections do help a bit)

Football (and all team sports ) is amazing for children. It keeps them active and teaches team work and resilience. But ultimately such a small amount of people make a career about of it, and then only a few hundred are in the tops squads of the top leagues. Most professionals end up playing in the lower leagues where the spoils and fame are much lower. Children should play because they enjoy it and ride the wave but with the expectation they are more likely to end up doing something else career wise.

A boy in DD class signed with Southampton, about 7 years ago. His family and the school were so delighted, but the poor boy (and family) were driving 100s of miles a week to make training, he wasn't allowed to play with the school team or for fun. And then he was suddenly dumped a year later.
It broke that poor boy, he was too young to understand the risks.

My DB absolutely loves football and was delighted that one of his kids enjoys it too. He did not, however, want his kid playing on a team because of the disappointment that not being selected, or being dropped, can cause.

My nephew, however, is totally football mad and plays for a local team. He's not been picked yet for an academy but his coaches are heading that way.

DB is very conflicted over it as it's clear DN is good and loves it, but he never wanted it for his son, despite being a massive football fan himself.

DN's been playing for about a year now and DB is coming round to the idea that it's part of his life now, but it took him a long time to actually go to a match.

Realistically, it's very unlikely that many academy players will progress to the top of the sport. There are 22 teams in the PL, and (having only looked at Arsenal), teams have around 22 first team players, so 484 players across the PL. Out of that 22 players in Arsenal, only 5 are British.

Ultimately it's great OP's nephew has been signed, but they need to be kept grounded to the reality of his prospects and ensure his other studies don't suffer as a result.

My DD is signed to an academy and it’s really not for the faint hearted. It’s brutal and will be even worse for the boys.

It’s a very competitive environment where many parents seem to be living their dreams vicariously through their kids. It takes lots of hard work and dedication from both the child and parents and there’s always that worry that your child will be released and how to deal with the aftermath of that.

We have always been honest with our DD that it may not last forever and she should grab all opportunities with both hands.

But the main thing is, he needs to enjoy it!

Different sport, but one of my DDs was a pretty good swimmer in primary school. She attended some sort of development workshop while the parents were given an information session.

DH went, but it was informative and relevant to all sports, I think. Essentially, only a small percentage of swimmers are predictably good all the way through. Some peak early, often coinciding with an earlier puberty and others don’t stand out until 15 years plus. Even at 18 years only about 50% of those winning things will still be as competitive in a year’s time.

i think any kind of selection before puberty, at the very least, is crazy. It’s not fair for a 10 year old to have their sense of identity shaped around a massively unrealistic dream.

A lad I went to secondary school with was in the training academy for Northampton Saints rugby for a few years. And gosh, didn't we all know it??

He was dropped when we were about 15/16.

I know 3 people who went to an academy. Only one became a professional player, and that at a very low level and not for long.

All 3 are now PE teachers. Two state schools and one public school.

Bloke I drink with has a grandson at one. As you say, don't we know it!

Has someone already shared these stats - 98% of those signed to a professional academy never sign a professional contract, and 99.8% of them never play premier league.

It’s a massive statistic to wipe out virtually a whole, normal childhood for. Training three times a week, matches every weekend (travelling all round the country), can’t play club football, don’t have the time to do rugby, or athletics or swimming.

If I had my time again, I’d have said no thanks.

Very insightful post. Thank you for sharing.

That’s for their parents to decide, though. Football scouting is a huge business because the value of the cream of footballing talent is so high, so it makes total financial sense for academies to sign up promising children as young as possible and weed them out later, rather than risk rival clubs snatching them up. (If swimming or track and field or gymnastics or whatever were as big a business as PL football, there would be an equally widespread scouting network and an equally cutthroat academy system.)

And no, often it’s not psychologically healthy for the kids, but that’s the parents’ job to decide whether letting them sign with an academy is a good idea in the first place, and making sure they’re protected if they do. You can also see the obvious temptation for poorer parents to view this as the family’s route out of poverty. Which leads to more pressure on the child. There’s a reason football is largely still populated by WC players. And anecdotally, among the people I know whose children have had academy offers, the two who didn’t allow them to sign were MC.

I saw something recently that said only about 3% of football academy ‘students’ get into the Premier League

These sorts of academies should be banned. They are harmful, go against all good sports and social science evidence, and are useless in their predictive abilities.

It’s the “throw a load of eggs at a wall, and some might not break” strategy. The academy doesn’t care what they break, only the ones that come through unscathed. And it’s about money. Get 1000 kids on the books, get one superstar and you pay him his starting wage cheaply, then can sell him for money, rather than having to try and recruit and pay a load of 17 year olds who have risen to the top of the pile.

All good evidence shows that early specialisation in any sport leads to negative outcomes. Kids should play a variety of sports up to 16. All good evidence shows that puberty drastically alters outcomes also. All good evidence shows that these academies do not predict future sporting success. It’s so counterproductive I cannot understand why clubs are so wedded to the idea of academies at such a young age. They’re damaging children and not actually identifying any talent properly. They’re an utter waste of time and space.

It amazes me that they’re allowed. It’s abusive, financially motivated, damaging to children and counterproductive to producing top sports talent. Make sure your nephew knows his worth isn’t tied to any outcome of such a horrible process.

Of course it’s possible, there would be no professional footballers if it wasn’t possible! Most are just ‘ordinary kids’. That doesn’t change the fact that a tiny percentage of those who play for an academy team will go on to play professionally.

It’s closer to 0.3%

Parents make shitty choices for their children frequently, it doesn’t make it ok. Sure, they are emotionally manipulated and excited but these academies are exploiting that, aren’t they?

How successful are these scouting networks when they’re picking prepubertal boys? If sounds like pretty much none of them make it through.

All good evidence shows that these academies do not predict future sporting success

To add from this by notbad it sounds as though academies actually put these boys off playing soccer after they leave. As opposed to a physically confident child with good skills who plays, and is good at, a range of sports before they organically choose what to focus on.

Imagine any other scenario, being set up afresh:

”I’ve got an idea on how to find the next top artist/scientist/teacher/politician/whatever. We’ll create a network of academies and take thousands of 10 year old children who we think might have some talent in this area, we will only focus on this area, they won’t really be able to do anything else, and we’ll see who comes out on top.”

”Ok, sounds, promising, should get a decent return on that, what would you expect to get back as top achievers with this method?”

”0.3%.”

”0.3%?! what happens to the other 99.7%?!”

”Not my problem, Guv.”

”NEXT!”

I actually know someone who DID make it through all the academies, right up until the age of 17 when we randomly had an injury while playing (can't remember if it was knee or ankle).

Basically his injury healed fine but he could never regain the highly competitive level he was at before and was forced to drop out.

However, he had great exam results, went to a top uni and now has a high paying job, so not a disaster. It was just an interesting story he told people.

I imagine his outlook would have been very different if he hadn't also put effort into academics.

Whether they end up making to the PL or not, the truth that being in an academy will teach the child one the most important lessons in life: to succeed you need to work hard.
For that reason only, sports academies are in my ok books.