"As a young footballer, everybody is selling the same dream to you"
October 7, 2017 3:22 AM Subscribe
Of the boys who make it into football's elite scholarship programme at 16, past PFA research has found that five out of six are not playing professional football at 21.
The Guardian takes a look at the damaging outcomes for boys who wash out of the system.
[CN: mental health, suicide]
I think that this push to professionalization of kids' athletics is becoming more common for more sports everywhere, and it's really dangerous, for all of the reasons enumerated in this article.
As an American, I find this article really interesting because I have always thought that the professionalization of our university athletics is a big problem and that because the UK doesn't have an equivalent to the NCAA, their young athletes would fare better. So it was interesting to realize that for students from the UK football academies who did not transition to be Premier League pros, one of the better places to end up was NCAA soccer, because at least then they have a better chance to catch up in their academics and move on with their lives post-soccer (or play MLS, I guess?).
I don't know what the answer is anywhere for the simple problem of having too many folks with professional sports dreams and not nearly enough slots for them, but all programs ought to be better equipped to help the folks who don't quite make it find a way to a successful, happy, non-sports life.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:55 AM on October 7, 2017
As an American, I find this article really interesting because I have always thought that the professionalization of our university athletics is a big problem and that because the UK doesn't have an equivalent to the NCAA, their young athletes would fare better. So it was interesting to realize that for students from the UK football academies who did not transition to be Premier League pros, one of the better places to end up was NCAA soccer, because at least then they have a better chance to catch up in their academics and move on with their lives post-soccer (or play MLS, I guess?).
I don't know what the answer is anywhere for the simple problem of having too many folks with professional sports dreams and not nearly enough slots for them, but all programs ought to be better equipped to help the folks who don't quite make it find a way to a successful, happy, non-sports life.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:55 AM on October 7, 2017
Youth sports are like a series of colanders where only the very finest get to the bottom, and very little is done to address to those that reach it but do little, let alone those stopped along the way. It's hard enough to know if a player is turning out to be something at the age of 20, let alone 16 or 10. All it takes is one injury, one poorly decided transfer or a coach that is terrible at developing a player or wants something different for the position to derail a career early on.
There's plenty of players who get international u-17 or even u-19 callups but then are never capable of taking the next step and end up on a decent lower-tier professional team if they're lucky. Looking back at Portugal's golden generation that won back-to-back u-20 World Championships, there were players that managed great careers in the 90s, but on a team that had Figo and Rui Costa, the best player in 1991 was Emílio Peixe, who fizzled out quickly after a failed stint in Spain, although he always played top-division football. It's hard to say he was a failure, because plenty of his team mates were not so lucky - a lot of them slid down to the semi-professional leagues over the decade and finished their careers on third or fourth tiers, and we're talking of u-20 World Champions. Two years before, a key player was Jorge Couto, who never managed to become more than a bench player for Porto (although he was a decent player in the mid-to-late 90s for Boavista) and won a fair share of titles. One of the starting players of that team lately on the news is (Abel Silva) because he's now on trial for match-fixing.
If UEFA rolled back the Bosman Ruling on foreign players and only allowed at best a handful of foreign players (giving a softer pass to players born in culturally linked countries, such as former colonies, the UK, etc, while not allowing ancestry passports), it would force teams to actually take care of their youth academies to create potential starters instead of just casting a net wide enough to get a run away success every now and then, because they wouldn't be able to get 11 internationals from 7 or 8 countries on their squad.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:14 AM on October 7, 2017
There's plenty of players who get international u-17 or even u-19 callups but then are never capable of taking the next step and end up on a decent lower-tier professional team if they're lucky. Looking back at Portugal's golden generation that won back-to-back u-20 World Championships, there were players that managed great careers in the 90s, but on a team that had Figo and Rui Costa, the best player in 1991 was Emílio Peixe, who fizzled out quickly after a failed stint in Spain, although he always played top-division football. It's hard to say he was a failure, because plenty of his team mates were not so lucky - a lot of them slid down to the semi-professional leagues over the decade and finished their careers on third or fourth tiers, and we're talking of u-20 World Champions. Two years before, a key player was Jorge Couto, who never managed to become more than a bench player for Porto (although he was a decent player in the mid-to-late 90s for Boavista) and won a fair share of titles. One of the starting players of that team lately on the news is (Abel Silva) because he's now on trial for match-fixing.
If UEFA rolled back the Bosman Ruling on foreign players and only allowed at best a handful of foreign players (giving a softer pass to players born in culturally linked countries, such as former colonies, the UK, etc, while not allowing ancestry passports), it would force teams to actually take care of their youth academies to create potential starters instead of just casting a net wide enough to get a run away success every now and then, because they wouldn't be able to get 11 internationals from 7 or 8 countries on their squad.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:14 AM on October 7, 2017
The Bosman ruling was a ruling of the European Court of Justice. I don't see how EUFA could do anything to roll it back, it's EU law. The free movement of workers is a fundamental EU principle. And, of course, the UK will have to keep complying with that law, post-Brexit, because it will still want to be part of organisations that exist in the context of the EU. The fact that the Bosman judgment will continue to determine practices in British football post-Brexit is a great example of the utter folly of the path we have set ourselves on.
posted by howfar at 11:53 AM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by howfar at 11:53 AM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
It took some 10 years until the two doped swimmers brought a different case rendering sporting exemptions useless over EU law unless a case was presented and accepted in court. Bosman wanted to go to Dunkerque because his contract was up but rfcl wouldn't release him, not because they already had three foreign players: UEFA just rolled over, and on a case about free agency they also removed limitations of foreign players. There are "limitations to free movement" the EU is perfectly fine with: players can't play with two clubs in the same european competition in the same season after the qualifiers, and can only move clubs in July, August and January. The 6+5 suggestion was shot down, and didn't violate anything about free movement of players: a team could still sign 30 non-national players, if two thirds of them they didn't care about spending most of the season on the stands and on the bench. It's not like the prospect has stopped players from doing exactly that.
The foreign player limit isn't coming back, but that's because the richer clubs (both on continental and national level) have their fingers on the scale and are not letting it go because it plays to their benefit, not because it's "EU Law". And of course, the FA is not going to shoot themselves in the foot by putting a non-British player limit, because one thing is pushing the end of the transfer period to the end of June that has a lot of support from other leagues and is likely to be standardized, other is putting themselves in a disadvantage, because nobody else will be doing it.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:34 PM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
The foreign player limit isn't coming back, but that's because the richer clubs (both on continental and national level) have their fingers on the scale and are not letting it go because it plays to their benefit, not because it's "EU Law". And of course, the FA is not going to shoot themselves in the foot by putting a non-British player limit, because one thing is pushing the end of the transfer period to the end of June that has a lot of support from other leagues and is likely to be standardized, other is putting themselves in a disadvantage, because nobody else will be doing it.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:34 PM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
There are "limitations to free movement" the EU is perfectly fine with: players can't play with two clubs in the same european competition in the same season after the qualifiers, and can only move clubs in July, August and January.
But, as the Bosman judgment makes clear, the fact that some restrictions on treaty rights are justified does not mean that all such restrictions are justified. The question of legitimacy and effectiveness is fundamental.
The 6+5 suggestion was shot down, and didn't violate anything about free movement of players: a team could still sign 30 non-national players, if two thirds of them they didn't care about spending most of the season on the stands and on the bench.
From the Bosman judgment.
posted by howfar at 2:05 PM on October 7, 2017
But, as the Bosman judgment makes clear, the fact that some restrictions on treaty rights are justified does not mean that all such restrictions are justified. The question of legitimacy and effectiveness is fundamental.
The 6+5 suggestion was shot down, and didn't violate anything about free movement of players: a team could still sign 30 non-national players, if two thirds of them they didn't care about spending most of the season on the stands and on the bench.
From the Bosman judgment.
Article 48 of the Treaty precludes the application of rules laid down by sporting associations under which, in matches in competitions which they organize, football clubs may field only a limited number of professional players who are nationals of other Member States.I'm not sure what you're saying actually reflects the legal facts as they stand. Yes, a report commissioned by FIFA on the 6+5 rule got the result that FIFA wanted, but the simple text of the Bosman judgment does not suggest to me that this is correct "Article 48 of the EEC Treaty precludes the application of rules laid down by sporting associations under which, in matches in competitions which they organize, football clubs may field only a limited number of professional players who are nationals of other Member States."
Such rules are contrary to the principle of the prohibition of discrimination based on nationality as regards employment, remuneration and conditions of work and employment and it is of no relevance that they concern not the employment of such players, on which there is no restriction, but the extent to which their clubs may field them in official matches, since, in so far as participation in such matches is the essential purpose of a professional player's activity, a rule which restricts that participation obviously also restricts the chances of employment of the player concerned.
posted by howfar at 2:05 PM on October 7, 2017
Bosman is net-net a massive benefit to labor over capital. I just can't not laugh out of the room any argument that it has somehow harmed players in aggregate.
posted by JPD at 2:45 PM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by JPD at 2:45 PM on October 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
"As an American, I find this article really interesting because I have always thought that the professionalization of our university athletics is a big problem and that because the UK doesn't have an equivalent to the NCAA, their young athletes would fare better."
While the NCAA has a shitton of problems (especially in the highest-profile sports, football and basketball), the vast majority of student-athletes use sports as a vehicle to get a college education, rather than college as a vehicle to get into pro sports.
And even for the kids who are hoping to play Olympic-level sports, the fact that for most sports the path to that level runs through high schools and the NCAA means that if you stake your life on volleyball and fail, at least you're coming out of that failure with a college degree -- and quite possibly a free college degree. And you've had to maintain academic eligibility for all those years, so as long as you're not playing Division I football or basketball, it's a meaningful degree backed by meaningful academic achievements.
I'm always horrified when I read about these private club systems for bringing up talented players; it seems way too professionalized way too young. It's like all the worst bits of US gymnastics elite squads, only with a lot more money and involving very large teams and leagues so there's a lot more kids having their childhood stunted in service of a sport.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:12 PM on October 8, 2017
While the NCAA has a shitton of problems (especially in the highest-profile sports, football and basketball), the vast majority of student-athletes use sports as a vehicle to get a college education, rather than college as a vehicle to get into pro sports.
And even for the kids who are hoping to play Olympic-level sports, the fact that for most sports the path to that level runs through high schools and the NCAA means that if you stake your life on volleyball and fail, at least you're coming out of that failure with a college degree -- and quite possibly a free college degree. And you've had to maintain academic eligibility for all those years, so as long as you're not playing Division I football or basketball, it's a meaningful degree backed by meaningful academic achievements.
I'm always horrified when I read about these private club systems for bringing up talented players; it seems way too professionalized way too young. It's like all the worst bits of US gymnastics elite squads, only with a lot more money and involving very large teams and leagues so there's a lot more kids having their childhood stunted in service of a sport.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:12 PM on October 8, 2017
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posted by Don.Kinsayder at 7:11 AM on October 7, 2017