EPL youth academies need to be tweaked down/ remodelling of Regens from EPL Academies

note: was deliberating if this was the right forum for the post couldn't decide wheather to post it here or under League/club Data Issues.

WARNING: If you are not at all interested in youth development or the future of English football avoid reading further.

Since I work in the football industry and I spent 5months last year in England visting clubs and academies of teams such as Manchester United, Aston Villa and West Ham. The consensus seems to be the same that the "Wayne Rooney" of English nationals will be the last real fruitful generation of England nationals.

Some consideration has to be given to the fact that this was during the time when "Worldclass" England manager Steve McClaren was in charge of the national team and managed to lose out to a Croatia side that had absolutley nothing to play for at Wembley.

Since the FA decided to implement their own version of the French Academy system (mid 90's) they have continously forced clubs to only recruit players from a limited geographical perimeter (basically around their area code).

This has killed the earlier "free market" situaiton that before exsisted on youth players. Such as Man United being able to recruit from outside London as was the case with Beckham.

The FA had valiant intentions with this: Attempting/forcing the clubs to cocentrate and coperate more with grass root development in their own area inorder to ensure that they will have a good base for recruitment

However the consequences have been detremental.

In the EPL and thus in the English Premier youth academies their is an unatural concentration of clubs stemming from London and Lancashire.

This means the Geographical recruitment area for these clubs is proportionally much smaller than for Aston Villa.

Rather then sit around and wait for the clubs from these area's to start outshining their academies the EPL club have looked elsewhere esp the big4. Liverpool and Man Untd who already have a strong link with Ireland/Scotland/Wales/N Ireland. I mean the math is simple a 1/6 of Lancashire can't really measure up to the whole UK + Ireland excluding England.

London based Chelsea and Arsenal are have instead of fighting for bit and scraps in London pretty much adopted the whole world as their base for youth recruitment. Tottenham and Fulham haven't been late to follow suit.

This Leads to that the Squads of the U19/U18 in 2008 team look nationality wise like the squad of the EPL team in 98, dominated by foreigners.

Its Only a question of time before Arsenal or Chelsea play their first U18 game without a single english national.

So in conclusion when progressing a couple of seasons into the FM game and engine begins to produce English nationality future superstars from team's such as Arsenal/Chelsea/Manchester United

I can't help to say that this is highly unrealistic given the development IRL.

The brunt of these consequences won't be felt by the England Team until 2014. When the "Rooney" generation will start to peak and there will be no one to take their place.

My Suggestions is therefor to either tweak the youth development down of the EPL academies

or

To simply install a wider range of nationalities being regenerated (specific to the EPL or to the bigger clubs) so that the youth teams of the EPL will continue to have a realistic look.

sorry was this posted in the handheld forum I meant to post it under General Discussion

duplicated this thread in the general discussion since I wasn't able to move it so feel free to close this one (in the handheld forums) down.