If it makes more money than it costs its the opposite of expensive - are you thick? You want to get rid of another income stream?
If it makes more money than it costs its the opposite of expensive - are you thick? You want to get rid of another income stream?No - I don't necessarily see the value of it either.
I suspect very few league one clubs have one of this size and I suspect they are not exactly envious - many teams still have young players play for them without such an expensive solution.
Most importantly the average mangers life span for CCFC is less than a year over the last 15 years.
So to make such a critical decision for the club, will rightly be nothing to do with the manager.
It will be down to the owners who have been here for 9 years and say the club is not for sale.
The manager will always say keep it if asked his opinion because it is a win win for him.
Nothing is different to years gone by, just the fees are higher, I can quote Dennis Mortimer, Graham Paddon, Brian Alderson, Paul Dyson, Andy Blair, Danny Thomas, Chris Kirkland, Mark Hateley, Garry Thompson, there are many others all sold for at the time decent fees and played top level football, all came through our youth team system and the money raised kept us afloat or atleast in the top division for years.Whatever level the academy is set at
Wilson
Maddison
Sambou
Christie
Bigi
All have raised vital life blood money for the club. We are possibly talking
7-10 million ( 10-18 years funding of the academy)
Then think about the number of appearances from these lot on relatively low wages
Nothing is different to years gone by, just the fees are higher, I can quote Dennis Mortimer, Graham Paddon, Brian Alderson, Paul Dyson, Andy Blair, Danny Thomas, Chris Kirkland, Mark Hateley, Garry Thompson, there are many others all sold for at the time decent fees and played top level football, all came through our youth team system and the money raised kept us afloat or atleast in the top division for years.
I would be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind that perhaps the overall strategy of Mowbray/Venus wasn't as pro Academy as many think.
And the Mowbray / Venus smear campaign begins.
Question
At what point in this development does a player have value and adds to the financial structure of CCFC?
The Academy builds a player to a certain point and value (that value would be the compensation due at that point perhaps?). The current rules would seem to restrict value of Academy players as they qualify and step up because of the compensation rules. But surely the real value is accrued by being successful in the first team. Now you can argue that the Academy nurtured that ability and developed it to a point, but if we are talking real increments in sale value then I tend to think that happens by being in the first team not the Academy.
What I would think also happens is that the wage demands of the average Academy player moving from the clubs Academy in to a clubs first team are lower than buying in from another team. Always helpful when looking to reduce cost as a club. That step from Academy to first team is the vulnerable point for a club in terms of potential for sales values, and that is why the big teams often use their status to tempt the best prospects at that point.
Wilson & Maddison felt an allegiance to CCFC others have not. But at the change from Academy to First team squad their value was not great in the scheme of things and their proper development far from certain
I would be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind that perhaps the overall strategy of Mowbray/Venus wasn't as pro Academy as many think. Or is it that the reality is our Academy for whatever reason hasn't got the talent imagined and we got lucky with Wilson, Maddison etc - and that we have shifted to a more normal structure of also identifying other talent elsewhere because we have a scouting network now.
Wilson btw was not a product of the Cat 2 status
Bottom line is the Academy helped acquire (and lose talent) but to accredit the whole of a players sale value to the Academy just does not seem logical to me. The Academy makes how much for the club............?
This has struck me as odd too. The publishing of all CCFC correspondence on the academy seems to be just to get people thinking 'well they did everything they could', rather than actually thinking it will work (particularly the (as ever I guess) condescending tone of Fisher's last letter).It wouldn't surprise me if SISU do want to get rid off the academy, it would explain their strange approach to saving it (negotiating with Higgs). It wouldn't be their fault it would be Wasps and Higgs fault.
As I pointed out the other day, there are other facilities around. A tie in with Coventry University would seem a viable option.
I also note that when you make a statement such as this one and "TM should be sacked" and then you are asked "who would you replace him with" and "where is the evidence that the money from Maddison and Wilson etc has not gone to the playing squad" you never respond.
It proves you are either just a WUM or don't really know what you are talking about. I suggest it is a bit of both.
"Academies are the lifeblood of football clubs, produce players who have aspirations of breaking through. It’s vital for a club like Coventry and I am hopeful we can come to a resolution .”
TM July 22nd 2016
Whatever level the academy is set at
Wilson
Maddison
Sambou
Christie
Bigi
All have raised vital life blood money for the club. We are possibly talking
7-10 million ( 10-18 years funding of the academy)
Then think about the number of appearances from these lot on relatively low wages.
Burge
Willis
Clarke
Thomas
Thomas
DKE
Haynes
Harries
Clarke
Spence
Lawton
Finch
Phillips
They are not a expendible Brucey bonus on top of the normal running of the club. Like at somewhere like Chelsea. These days they are the club and other signings are now the Brucey bonus.
Luckily for us TM and MV know this only too well. As per TM's quote weeks ago that the academy is vital for a club like Coventry.
Key question now is do the club?
From everything I have read coming from the club so far and all their actions up to this point have suggested they know how vital it is.
Let's see them get this shared site arrangement arranged ASAP.
another question
The perceived wisdom is - The academy is all important and it is vital we retain Cat 2 status for the future of the club.
If it is so vital for our future and makes so much money for the club by player sales would CCFC still do it if there were no grant of £480k received? The profits sales of Wilson and Maddison, using the logic of some here (which I do not agree with btw), would still mean the Academy broke even at least since Cat 2 started
I am not 100% convinced they would have retained an Academy you know............ would have spent £1.2m pa on it, could they even afford to spend that.
another question
The perceived wisdom is - The academy is all important and it is vital we retain Cat 2 status for the future of the club.
If it is so vital for our future and makes so much money for the club by player sales would CCFC still do it if there were no grant of £480k received? The profits sales of Wilson and Maddison, using the logic of some here (which I do not agree with btw), would still mean the Academy broke even at least since Cat 2 started
I am not 100% convinced they would have retained an Academy you know............ would have spent £1.2m pa on it, could they even afford to spend that.
Whatever level the academy is set at
Wilson not a product of the Cat 2 Academy and his value increased because he played first team. His value really grew by being away from CCFC altogether
Maddison yes there is some value from the Academy but again his real value increased by being in first team
Sambou never played first team so we got compensation for him which is usually a calculation based on pre set amounts and a lot less than value
Christie His value again was based on his first team appearances and the fee I would doubt was that big. Although it probably is by being at Derby not CCFC
Bigi again he played first team and that boosted his value frankly CCFC got lucky with the fee they got. Our Academy turned the lad down apparently several times before taking him on
Is it the academy got lucky in having them in the first place? But again the value in the academy up until they got their first team contracts was a minority part of what the value became by being first team (Sambou aside)
All have raised vital life blood money for the club. We are possibly talking
7-10 million ( 10-18 years funding of the academy) The cost of the academy is 1,2m pa. In addition it would be the profit that contributed to the academy not the fee. You could very well argue it the other way round that selling first team players helped keep the Academy afloat
Then think about the number of appearances from these lot on relatively low wages.
Burge
Willis
Clarke
Thomas
Thomas
DKE
Haynes
Harries
Clarke
Spence
Lawton
Finch
Phillips
and none of them are worth much in sales value even with first team experience. Often let go for no fee. So we saved some wages - you could argue that properly spent those wages could have attracted fewer players but better quality and the prospect of some success or even greater sales values. With the exception of perhaps Harries & Willis that is not a group of players that comes across as anything other than average. Those players and others have been a cost to a serially unsuccessful club to date. Some of them might change that perception but most wont/haven't . So has the Academy prospered the club where it really matters most- on the pitch?
They are not a expendible Brucey bonus on top of the normal running of the club. Like at somewhere like Chelsea. These days they are the club and other signings are now the Brucey bonus. In L1 perhaps, is the plan to stay there?. The Chelsea model is quite deliberate they buy in players on low fees and then sell on (often without the player playing CFC first team) for millions. Because it is Chelsea there is a perception of a premium to be paid. It brings in decent profits and all the top teams try to operate in that way. They trade in young players and it is lucrative for those clubs. Our academy talent is not in the same class generally which is perhaps why TM/MV have a habit of relying on other peoples Academies for first team players
Luckily for us TM and MV know this only too well. As per TM's quote weeks ago that the academy is vital for a club like Coventry.
Key question now is do the club? The playing side is TM/MV ....... If the Academy is so successful why would the owners even query its finances
From everything I have read coming from the club so far and all their actions up to this point have suggested they know how vital it is. I don't share your confidence in those statements - it could just be lip service to drum up support and emotions during a time of falling interest (just a thought nothing more)
Let's see them get this shared site arrangement arranged ASAP.
And how does that mean that they don't value the academy? Surely all it demonstrates is that the manager is doing his job again and protecting the club with a long-term contract? It's like suggesting that other managers valued the academy more because they signed players on short term contracts and let them run out. It's bollocks.
I think this is the way it will go even if ccfc unearth a gem at the age of 10/11 he won't be here at 16 remember Daniel Sturridge, The big boys have it virtually sewn up and if they want to poach a starlet will do what it takes to get him.Sorry don but I do not share your analysis. So have played devils advocate a little above
Question - what is the basis of the assertion that we are the 4th (or whatever it is) best Cat 2 academy in the country?
Someone mentioned Brentford earlier I believe - currently in which division? - and not relying on Cat 2 Academy. Whereas we have placed reliance on Academy players coming through and achieved ? The goal posts have been moved by the Premiership clubs and the financing of Academies in the lower leagues has been detrimentally affected in my opinion and I think we will see more clubs question the logic of Cat 2. That doesn't mean questioning the logic of training and developing young players - but doing it differently
I think we have to keep an open mind. I have always supported the Academy but it doesn't make me blind to potential alternatives. I suspect for the CCFC owners it is only about crunching the immediate annual financial numbers and I think that makes the Academy future very uncertain
Doubt they could and I have doubts it makes a profit even with the grant - we will never know as you don't see the value of fees.
To me though giving a long list of players who have no worth other than play for us as a league one club (e.g. Haynes) that's a sign of failure of it not success. If it's producing bog standard league one players there has to be a better method of recruitment.
If we believe everything we have heard about the scouting network at CCFC - from the shambles it was under Pressley and the excel spreadsheet departing with him, to the total overhaul conducted by TM and MV - could its' successful and continuing development offset the need for a Category 2 Academy altogether? To me there is a conflict here, especially when identifying players close to the first team. Every Stokes, Jones and Turnbull identified and secured through this scouting network reduces the need for unearthing a Stevenson, Harries or DKE every once in a while.
Continued success for the revamped scouting network would surely reduce the requirement of a Cat 2 Academy, possibly reducing to Cat 3, Cat 4 or even none at all and the removal of all associated costs? Youth training and development for early age groups could then continue as it was before.
I suspect for the CCFC owners it is only about crunching the immediate annual financial numbers and I think that makes the Academy future very uncertain
This. Its no long term strategy, its about the now.
Not really as his whole post states there is plenty of logic to not maintain it as a long term strategy either does it not?
Sorry don but I do not share your analysis. So have played devils advocate a little above
Question - what is the basis of the assertion that we are the 4th (or whatever it is) best Cat 2 academy in the country?
Someone mentioned Brentford earlier I believe - currently in which division? - and not relying on Cat 2 Academy. Whereas we have placed reliance on Academy players coming through and achieved ? The goal posts have been moved by the Premiership clubs and the financing of Academies in the lower leagues has been detrimentally affected in my opinion and I think we will see more clubs question the logic of Cat 2. That doesn't mean questioning the logic of training and developing young players - but doing it differently
I think we have to keep an open mind. I have always supported the Academy but it doesn't make me blind to potential alternatives. I suspect for the CCFC owners it is only about crunching the immediate annual financial numbers and I think that makes the Academy future very uncertain
At the start I made reference to the academy at whatever level (category) it is at hence including the likes of Wilson. Of course his value grew from playing in the first team that is the whole concept of the model at our level.
Develop them into the first increase their value to the optimum point of selling them. We were unfortunate with Sambou that he didn't get into the first team
Read above for Christie and Bigi
You have to have an academy to get lucky in the first place so no it's not luck. It's about been their to capture the talent abd nuture that talent.
The cost to run the academy is 1.2 million 500k of which we receive as a grant.
So it costs us 700k a year hence
The figures are based on the profit.
You could run the academy for 15 years on those transfer fees alone.
The academy more than self funds.
Those players when they broke into the squads would have been on dirt cheap washes less than trying to sign the equivalent 10-15 players.
Plus you have the advantage of knowing all about them when you give them their first pro contract.
Plus you get to pick from your own pool of players that you know inside out.
So far TM says what he means. Until he doesn't you should treat his comments that way.
So do Brentford not aspire to be a Premiership club? They are a lot closer than we are.
So why do the likes of Fisher, Herman et al keep banging on about how important it is to have the academy which has resulted in MPs asking questions, calls to arms from the Observer and Telegraph, the Trust? I'm not trying to be dumb or anything, but why are they (and a lot of us too) bleating so much over the Higgs/WASPs deal if it's not essential and there are workable alternatives? There must be something else, something that everyone's missing surely?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?