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Have just read this article in the Guardian on UK Soccer academies. Had never realised that they were so structured. Children identified at 6 years of age and then allocated to a club at age 8 !! The irony is that very few if any make it to the EPL as the money clubs buy in talent from overseas. Even the lowly Huddersfield has not had a player make its senior team from their academy for 18 years ! Huddersfield scrapped its 8-16 academy this year. "The Premier League’s advocacy of the EPPP system was fundamentally challenged last month by one of its own clubs, newly promoted Huddersfield Town, who announced the blunt conclusion of an extensive review by scrapping the academy altogether in the 8-16 age groups. Parents of 100 boys were called to a meeting with the chief executive, Julian Winter, and told that their association with the club was to end in a month. Half the academy’s 25 permanent staff are to be laid off, along with part-time people working evening and weekends. Huddersfield had found that of all the boys who had come through their system, not one had played in the Premier League since Jon Stead, who graduated in 1999. That is 18 years of boys being taken out of local and school football from the age of eight, the overwhelming majority not securing a career. " Makes you glad that our AFL system, flawed as it might be is not as bad. Would be interested to hear views on the various methods of youth development in the AFL and other sports. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/oct/06/football-biggest-issue-boys-rejected-academies As usual the comments make for great reading