eca-youth-football-12-quality-areas-report

Official magazine of the International Masters of Gaming Law

THE

QUALITY AREAS ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH ACADEMIES

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

CONTENTS

Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 4 Executive Summary: key findings ............................................................. 6 Quality areas framework . ................................................................................ 8 Overall methodology . ....................................................................................... 12 Map of participating clubs ............................................................................ 16 Quality Areas methodology ....................................................................... 18 12 Quality Areas . ..................................................................................................... 20 Survey introduction . .......................................................................................... 44 Survey methodology .......................................................................................... 46 Survey analysis methodology .................................................................. 48 Working processes within the Quality Areas ........................... 50 Most common working processes ........................................................ 60 Working process correlations .................................................................. 64 Statistical findings conclusions .............................................................. 68 Club case study analysis ................................................................................ 70 Interview methodology .................................................................................. 74 Ajax Amsterdam .................................................................................................. 76 Athletic Club ........................................................................................................... 80 RSC Anderlecht .................................................................................................... 84 FC Copenhagen ................................................................................................... 88 Fenerbahçe SK ..................................................................................................... 92 FC Internazionale Milano .............................................................................. 96 FC Inter Turku ................................................................................................... 100 FC Kairat ................................................................................................................ 104 Legia Warsaw .................................................................................................... 108 Malmö FF .............................................................................................................. 112 Olympique Lyonnais .................................................................................... 116 Rangers FC .......................................................................................................... 120 HNK Rijeka ........................................................................................................... 124 FC Red Bull Salzburg .................................................................................... 128 FC Shakhtar Donetsk ................................................................................... 132 Sporting CP ......................................................................................................... 136 Zenit St. Petersburg . .................................................................................... 140 FC Zimbru . ........................................................................................................... 144 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 148 Glossary/project delivery team .......................................................... 150

T hese are challenging times for youth academies across Europe. The pandemic has affected the football world heavily and many academies have had to be flexible to deal with ever-changing circumstances. This only strengthens our belief about the important role the ECA Youth Working Group has to play. We firmly believe that youth academies can strengthen both themselves and each other through constant cooperation and the sharing of knowledge. Over the last year, the Youth Working Group has come together to translate current needs and industry developments into an ambitious three-year strategic plan. The ECA Youth Football Strategy, which runs from 2021 to 2023, comprises of four strategic pillars that aim to provide ECA member clubs with valuable guidance and services to further support the development of their youth academies both now and in the future. The first pillar is dedicated to the “regulatory protection of training clubs”. The rapidly evolving transfer market and increasing value of players require a robust and unambiguous framework to protect the development of youth players and their education. The strategy’s second pillar is centred around the “development of the youth competition landscape.” This includes optimising international club competitions, with the inclusion of the UEFA Youth League. The third pillar which aims to “facilitate knowledge exchange,” provides platforms for the sharing of insight and expertise between youth programmes through a wide range of formats; webinars, online workshops, and in-person visits to affiliated youth programmes. The fourth and final pillar commits to “delivering essential research,” including the release of this report. Projects such as this help ECA members to navigate global developments, gain further industry knowledge, and learn from best practice plans. This plays a crucial role in our aim to bring talent development at all clubs to the highest level, and inspire youth around the world with the game we love to play.

“The exchange of knowledge helps us in our aim to bring talent development at all clubs to the highest level”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our online survey had 352 individual hits from 72 countries around Europe and the rest of the world

Countries Germany

Hits

Countries

Hits

27 20 19 18 17 17 16 14 14 12 12 12 11 10 10

Georgia Sweden Austria

4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Spain France

Switzerland United States Netherlands

Czech Republic

Belgium

Republic of Moldova North Macedonia

Russian Federation

THE GLOBAL GAME

Kazakhstan

Senegal Norway Serbia Slovakia

United Kingdom

Italy

Slovenia Poland Croatia Turkey Finland Bulgaria Ukraine Ireland Portugal

Latvia

Azerbaijan

Estonia

Israel

9 7 7 7 6 6 6 6

Faroe Islands

Hungary Lithuania Romania Albania Belarus

Philippines

Cyprus Greece

Montenegro Other countries

Denmark

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes connected with the Physical Care Quality Area include:

PHYSICAL CARE

The standard of medical care, pitch-side and rehabilitation treatment

Do you have a formally defined coaching methodology?

Do you have Te-Ta coach for all age groups?

A nalysing Physical Care within the academy system enables us to cast an eye on all aspects of a player’s physical growth and physical well-being, which includes preparation for physical exercise, sport science, nutrition or medicine among others. Ultimately, when it comes to a player’s Physical Care, an academy will ensure its players are strong, fast and resistant to physical injury or, if an injury does

Do you have a dedicated coach to provide individual coaching to players in the academy?

happen, players are treated to ensure they can recover as quickly as possible without suffering long-term effects. The need for academies to consistently develop healthy, strong, fast and resilient individuals with positive lifestyle habits is growing. Modern football is placing increased physical demands on athletes, especially at the highest level, not least through growing speeds, intensities and fixture quantity. For many clubs, this is one of the areas with the most obvious focus on recent technological advances. It requires investment in hardware, software and

“The PlayStation has had an impact on kids' physical development”

Do you have strength and

Do you have athletics coach for all age groups?

conditioning coach for all age groups?

Jani Meriläinen, FC Inter Turku

Do you implement biobanding principles in age-group composition?

Is there an assessment of the physical capacity of the players?

staff, as well as new methodologies of physical training, medical care and sport science support at younger age groups. Since many of the elements connected with Physical Care include the delivery of specialised services to players in regulated areas, it's possible to verify quality levels through objective assessment of staffing (for example, the presence of certain positions within the organisational structure; and the quality of employees and their memberships to professional bodies). Other possible quality markers include such measurement of variables as the number of injuries by type, or training days missed within an academy setting, though this kind of individual health, and performance data, is a major challenge from a privacy point of view.

Do you film youth matches for subsequent analysis?

Do you have a full-time nutritionist at youth academy?

Do you have full-time doctor at youth academy?

Do you have a full-time physiotherapist at youth academy?

Is a player assessment done for each parent?

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SURVEY INTRODUCTION

Working processes represent 'what' we do at work consciously or unconsciously. Asking academy experts what they do has helped us gain valuable insight across academies…

you will identify areas that need improvement, and you will find new processes to help you do this. There will be some elements of your work that will be constrained by infrastructure and or logistics, but the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ are things

W hat and how we focus on for and the structure of our tasks. The working processes we use to do our duties also highlight what we find important to us and what is suitable to our philosophy or vision. How we then perform is related to the operationalisation of those processes. All of this is extremely important within the academy ecosystem, and it is all clearly interconnected In terms of the working processes you use, some relate to ‘what’ you do, ‘how’ you do it, and it’s the combination of these processes, and how they work together, that help us perform. our daily work routines relates to the organisations we work On top of that, it is useful to know what you use to deliver the ‘how’. Of course,

you can shape based on your philosophy, values, club DNA or your vision of what you see as successful for your academy and club. These working processes describe the same environment as the 12 Quality Areas, just from a different perspective. To help identify and describe the 12 QAs, we have used the list of working processes in the form of questions, then analysed their impact and assigned them to one or more Quality Areas. Hopefully, this list, which could in itself be seen as a concise methodology of running or development of a youth academy, could be useful when comparing to your own working processes, and might trigger some new questions for you to consider within your setting.

SURVEY

INTRODUCTION

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Edwin van der Sar Chairman of the ECA Youth Working Group, ECA Vice-Chairman & CEO AFC Ajax

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Those working in football academies are well-versed when it comes to developing

talented young players on the pitch and well- rounded human beings off it. But how do they deliver this in practice?

W hich working processes are academies using, and which ones in particular are being used by Europe's leading clubs? And which practices, if any, are the most

Desk research, overview of existing literature and statistical analysis

Survey focused on processes in youth academies

intercorrelated? These are among the many questions football clubs across all levels of the professional game are asking as they strive to improve their daily routines. This is where our research comes in. Enabling those in the game to have a better understanding of the overall academy ecosystem is a major motivating factor in producing this publication. The starting point was to follow-up the original ECA publication from 2017. It was here that the 12 Quality Areas concept was first introduced, and it provided a detailed explanation of the different pillars and their impact on the youth development process. Now, this brand new report includes an enhanced overview of the 12 QA and each of their sub-components, demonstrating how they interrelate with academy working processes, and evaluating their relative

creating a new survey designed for analysis by inferrential statistics delivers much more value. This new survey was specifically focused on various academy-level working processes and centred around a number of process groups, spanning the entire youth development pathway. Recognising indicators of development of successful youth academies is a step ahead of the current approach and unearths new content for experts. This will lead to a greater understanding of the factors that have a significant impact on the quality of individual youth academies.

Semi-structured interviews with youth development experts from other clubs

Semi-structured interviews with Youth Task Force members

“Everything is in this publication! It is up to the clubs to use it, as providers to and producers of players!” Liam Brady, former Arsenal FC Academy Director

significance via quantitative statistical methods. For the qualitative part, the youth report team carried out semi-structured interviews with 18 academy representatives around Europe to capture snapshots and best practices. On the quantitative side, all surveys that had been conducted previously in relation to development were analysed using descriptive statistics. These are not designed for analysis by inferrential statistics. Although interesting data was generated,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

78 % of clubs have a fundamental goal of strongly relying on the academy for sourcing its first-team players

2/3 use bio-banding principles in age-group composition

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: KEY FINDINGS

71 %

Here are what we think are the most significant findings from our surveys…

of clubs have a technical committee or similar in place Only 45 %

86 %

of clubs have a scouting department or scouting service dedicated to their youth academy

91 %

44 % of clubs have a Technical-Tactical (te-ta) Coach, with half of academies having a coaching methodology department in the organisational structure

2/3 of clubs estimate market value of academy players of clubs provide a hall of residence for young players

of clubs have defined selection criteria for youth players

81 %

8 %

of academies measure IQ of players after signing

55 %

(80%) cases, the Academy Director decides the style of play In 8 out 10

40% Just over of clubs plan ahead for more than four years for their youth academy

of clubs have defined regular goals or KPIs for academy staff… apart from sport results

of clubs have a dedicated training facility for their youth academy (may be shared with first team)

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OVERALL METHODOLOGY

W hen it comes to

understanding the football academy ecosystem and being

able to share knowledge, and help clubs improve their daily routines, there are some overarching questions that needed to be answered as a starting point:

Here, we reveal how we used surveys and interviews to help us identify working processes used within youth academies, and measure the strength of their influence on daily operations

What are academies in Europe doing to deliver for their clubs?

To whom are they delivering to?

What are football experts doing in their daily work to ensure they’re bringing up happy kids, satisfied human beings, and football players capable of succeeding at a professional level? Which working practices are used most frequently? Which ones are used by the best academies? And which ones are the most intercorrelated?

Principally, we know that academies deliver for their clubs and the children within their youth pathways, but they also exist to serve parents, the local community, club fans, even agents and the wider football community in general. Our goal in asking the above questions is to arm you, the football experts within your clubs and academies, with insight that will help you deliver more efficiently and effectively the aims of your youth pathway to the children, parents and communities you serve. This publication follows existing youth research relating to what we have termed the ‘12 Quality Areas’ in youth academies.

“We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open”

Harry Edwards, US sociologist/sports thinker

METHODOLOGY

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

METHODOLOGY

valuable learning points for others. This valuable insight also enabled us to understand more about the quality of these working processes, and what they mean for youth academy directors. The interviews also allowed us to delve more into the ‘why’ you do ‘what’ you do, and ‘how’ you conduct your daily activities . We used some general topics like sport policy, scouting, development of players and coaches, to name just a few. You can read more about these interviews from page 70, while the interviews themselves start on page 76. As an additional step, we also met with Liam Brady, an expert within the youth academy landscape and long-time former Director of the Arsenal FC academy, to discuss our results. His opinion is precious for understanding how youth academy experts perceive this overall project. You will find Liam Brady’s influence at various points throughout the publication. Finally, we have interpreted data and triangulated them into final conclusions, which you can read on page 148-149. We sincerely hope that the results and conclusions using this methodology will be helpful in your daily work as youth development practitioners and experts. Ultimately, we hope you will be able to develop or enhance your operations. Perhaps this methodology will be also useful for club management to look at their academies from a new perspective, and better understand what youth academy experts are dealing with.

These 12 QAs help us to assess the quality of the youth academy ecosystem and each academy within it . What are these 12 QAs? Which ones are most frequently used and intercorrelated? These questions are answered in the next few pages, but we found this approach acted as a learning point for us to understand the relation and hierarchy between the QAs, and therefore the effectiveness of academies across Europe. To reach our goal, we needed to identify a criterium for assessment. That criterium was threefold: working processes, logistics, and strategic documents which may occur in daily routines in youth academies. The working processes consist of questions that relate to the development path of a football player, the development of coaches, other employees, playing style and entire teams of players, interaction with other

All working processes were allocated to one or more QAs. Although each working process is linked to all QAs to a degree, we have segmented them on the basis of primary connection. Finally, we have identified how many working processes fell into each QA, and identified that some QAs are covered more densely than others. We used two research methods, survey and interview, to collect our data. Our main interest when conducting the surveys was to determine which of the working processes were used by each youth academy, as well as what their logistics looked like, and how formally they were used . You can read more about our surveys from page 44. To analyse these surveys, we used descriptive and inferential statistics. For the descriptive analysis, we identified which working processes are most used across academies in Europe, before looking at which QA they fell into, and identifying which QAs were most represented. For the inferential statistical analysis, we again assessed which QA these working processes fell into, classified them using inferential statistics and statistical correlations to see which processes had the most correlation (significance level 5%; those marked with ** have significance level 1%) with others. Interviews enabled us to go into more detail, and we were fortunate enough to be able to talk with some of the best and most interesting academies across Europe. We found that every academy regardless of its size has some

departments, community, schools, academic community, and how decisions are made. They start with Talent Identification (TID). An example of a question in this working process is: 'do you have a partner club?' The questions then follow the journey of youth academy development, and finishes with the transition to first team or leaving the club. These questions relate more to organisation and strategy than technical, so the ‘what’ rather than the ‘how’ or ‘why’.

Talent identification › E nvironment perspective › C lub perspective Youth academy › P laying style › P layers › C oaches › T eams › S couting THE ORDER OF WORKING PROCESSES

› Sale of players › Infrastructure › Staff › P arents › P layer agents

› School and academy community Transition from youth academy to first team › Selling/leaving the club › O ther departments › D ecision making

1 Correlation is a statistical measure that expresses the extent to which two variables are linearly related (meaning they change together at a constant rate). It is a common tool for describing simple relationships without making a statement about cause and effect.

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

THE 12 QUALITY AREAS FRAMEWORK

NUMBER OF WORKING PROCESSES WITHIN QA

133

The 12 Quality Areas framework enables us to recognise patterns with professional youth academies and display them in a simple manner

*a working process can be in several QAs at the same

TID - environment 97% Scout for talented players 94% Enter into communication with parents of potential players 92% Operate training camps or talent days for children not signed with the club 91% Hold parent meetings for potential players TID - club 100% Bring children to the club for trial trainings Youth academy - playing style 97% Have a formalised football philosophy in place 94% Have a formally defined coaching methodology 91% Monitor coaching methods within methodology 91% Transmit coaching methods within methodology to new coaches joining the academy Youth academy - players 100% Make some kind of assessment of players 98% Make an assessment of the physical capacity of players 91% Operate a code of conduct or set official behaviour standards for players Youth academy - coaches 97% Film youth matches for subsequent analysis 94% Assess coaches by various criteria Youth academy - staff MOST COMMON WORKING PROCESSES, CARRIED OUT BY 90%+ OF CLUBS IN SURVEY

T he creation of the 12 Quality Areas facts: laws describe what happens, whereas theories explain the reasons, but to arrive at them it is first necessary to identify the relevant phenomena and understand the patterns of their interaction. This creates the platform on which to build a predictable, repeatable and sustainable model. T his 12QA framework was a significant step towards recognising the patterns, or ‘scientific law’ of youth development in professional football. T he 12 QAs are identified above, and the number framework was similar to how scientific laws and theories emerge from scientific observations and beside each one is the number of working processes it connects to. As you can see, the most connected is

WHAT IS A WORKING PROCESS?

A working process is any method that employees use to create value for the organisation. They can vary from minor tasks to major processes that require specific skills or knowledge. Understanding what working processes are, what types of working processes you might encounter and how to optimise them can help academies become more efficient and productive.

100% Have full-time employees at youth academy 94% Have a formal organogram of youth academy Youth academy - parents 94% Hold regular meetings with parents of youth academy players 94% Hold individual meetings with parents? 91% Hold group meetings with parents Youth academy - school and academy community 91% Align their training timetable to the academic timetables of the academy players Transition from youth academy to first team 98% Explain to academy players the rationale behind different stages of the transition process, such as when they move between age groups, go out on loan or to a partner club

QUALITY AREAS FRAMEWORK

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THE 12 QUALITY AREAS FRAMEWORK

32 Do players receive learning support from the club, e.g. access to teachers or help in understanding the study materials they receive from school? 31 Are any non-coaching staff (e.g. psychologist, HR, pedagogue...) involved in delivering any team-level activities for players within their normal weekly schedule? 31 How many separate training fields do you have? 29 Do you have a full-time sport psychologist at youth academy? 28 Do you maintain a database with information about potential youth players (technical, tactical, physical, psychological, sociological, pedagogical)? 27 Do you have full-time individual for education at your club's youth academy? 23 Do you have full-time individual for welfare at your club's youth academy? 23 Do you have defined regular goals or KPIs for academy staff apart from sport results? 22 How many of those are full-sized? (i.e. official pitch size) 22 Do you have a full time match analyst at the academy? TOP 1O MOST INTERRELATED WORKING PROCESSES

Productivity, containing 133 instances. This is almost double the number of Talent Identification, the second on the list, with 78. This is clear evidence that for clubs the results of the academy’s work and the mechanisms by which

they bring talents into their system are the most crucial items on the agenda . Other important Quality Areas are Human Capital and Cognitive Care, which

sophisticated and comprehensive structure for viewing football academies and their key focus areas. Further developing this as a practical tool for academies wishing to improve their standing could be an interesting undertaking, especially if it’s combined with a focus on knowledge exchange and sharing of know-how Furthermore, once we master the different Quality Areas and the working processes they contain, the next stage of development is to establish success markers and key success factors. Working processes that are more aligned to successful academies can be recognised and analysed, and may offer us a unique shortcut to understanding the unique triggers that lead to very successful outcomes depending on club/academy's strategic goals. Finally, we should also underline that this is a dynamic process, which depends greatly on the environmental conditions. So, to remain relevant, we should constantly re-evaluate the professional football youth development environment and keep checking the validity of the 12 Quality Areas framework, and the continued significance of the various youth development processes, on a regular basis.

statistically unknown reason appear in the academy as well). The list of the top-10 most interrelated working processes, logistics or strategic subjects appear on the right. This list suggests that education, including non-football content, plus facilities, presence of specific positions such as sport psychologists, educators and welfare support, and keeping track of scouted players for better recruitment, are some of the nodal processes within youth development. This is also supported by our empirical experience of youth development. The interview process We targeted academies based on several factors, such as their level of development, recognised success in the field of youth development, and geographical representation of various regions around Europe. This process saw us collect more than 40 hours of information, and we selected what we felt was the most relevant, and which bits represented examples of best practice. We also used this process to get clarity on data collected from the surveys and statistical analysis.

“Every successful academy will be successful in its own way”

seems logical when you consider that coaches and other backroom staff are the individuals tasked with delivering the various educational and development programmes to the players. This then forms the basis of the transformation work an academy carries out. Understanding which working process are most interlinked gives us an insight into the relations and their position within the process hierarchy, and we searched for these using what is called Pearson correlation analysis (see glossary p148). In this way, we can arrange the working process by their level of influence on all other processes within an academy. It's important to understand that we don't Most interrelated working processes in academies talk about causality (i.e. where one working process is the reason why another working process appears), but correlation (when one working process is fulfilled within the academy environment, other process or processes from some

Future outlook The 12 Quality Areas assessment methodology offers a concise yet

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our online survey had 352 individual hits from 72 countries around Europe and the rest of the world

Countries Germany

Hits

Countries

Hits

Georgia Sweden Austria

27 20 19 18 17 17 16 14 14 12 12 12 11 10 10

4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Spain France

Switzerland United States Netherlands

Czech Republic

Belgium

Republic of Moldova North Macedonia

Russian Federation

THE GLOBAL GAME

Kazakhstan

Senegal Norway Serbia Slovakia

United Kingdom

Italy

Slovenia Poland Croatia Turkey Finland Bulgaria Ukraine Ireland Portugal

Latvia

Azerbaijan

Estonia

Israel

Faroe Islands

9 7 7 7 6 6 6 6

Hungary Lithuania Romania Albania Belarus

Philippines

Cyprus Greece

Montenegro

Denmark

Other countries

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

METHODOLOGY

The 12 Quality Areas

We have added new research methods to the existing concept of the 12 Quality Areas

development. These QAs serve as a useful framework for self-reflection and analysis in an area recognised for its complexity and randomness. The 12 QA framework was an early step towards attempting to recognise the patterns – or framework, it needs to be representative of the real facts, easily understandable, and represented in a simple way. However, one of the limitations of the Quality Areas framework is that each of the QAs merely represent a grouping of markers, which directly impact on the quality outcome (or success) of an individual youth academy. These groupings by themselves can be interpreted as objectives for each academy, such as delivering the best possible standards of physical or cognitive care. So, if we are to imagine a classic scatter plot with an X and Y axis, the 12 QAs would be only one of the axis, let’s say Y, and not informative on its own. ‘scientific law’ – of youth development in professional football. And, as with any such This is where our new research comes in. Our findings for 2022 stem from the recognition that the way each club or academy delivers these Quality Areas is by implementing certain processes within the organisation, which are tasked with reaching objectives, whether they are in cognitive care or productivity. So, by adding the X axis to our existing Y, we’re better able to recognise the relationship between QAs and processes.

The concept of the 12 Quality Areas in professional football academies and youth

Physical care 20-21

Cognitive care 22-23

development was created by a task force of the ECA Youth Working Group in 2016-17, and presented at the Youth Conference in Munich in 2017. This task force, which comprised a selected group of football youth development and club management experts, used a scientific process to come up with a shared position and an extensive list of factors that determined the success of an academy setting. This list was based on an analysis of existing academy licensing systems, plus the results of a specially prepared survey of youth academies. It was then aligned with the professional experience of members of the task force to provide a complete overview of the various factors comprising professional youth development in football. Once completed, the full list was analysed further in order to create a coherent group of Quality Areas that cover the entire scope of professional football youth

Finances 24-25

Facilities 26-27

Talent identification 28-29

Productivity 30-31

Strategic importance 32-33

Competition 34-35

Human capital 36-37

Club buy-in 38-39

Community connectivity 40-41

Systemic overview of professional football youth development environment

Professional connectivity 42-43

Quality markers

Analysis

“To do the best things in an academy normally costs money. By looking at this publication and its findings, academy leaders can get information on which key aspects they should focus on, and allocate their resources accordingly” Liam Brady, former Arsenal FC Academy Director

12 QUALITY AREAS

METHODOL OGY

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes connected with the Physical Care Quality Area include:

PHYSICAL CARE

The standard of medical care, pitch-side and rehabilitation treatment

Do you have a formally defined coaching methodology?

Do you have Te-Ta coach for all age groups?

A nalysing Physical Care within the academy system enables us to cast an eye on all aspects of a player’s physical growth well-being, which includes preparation for exercise, sport science, nutrition or medicine among others. Ultimately, when it comes to a player’s Physical Care, an academy will ensure its players are strong, fast and resistant to injury or, if an injury does

Do you have a dedicated coach to provide individual coaching to players in the academy?

“The PlayStation has had an impact on kids' physical development”

Do you have strength and

Do you have athletics coach for all age groups?

conditioning coach for all age groups?

Jani Meriläinen, FC Inter Turku

Do you implement biobanding principles in age-group composition?

Is there an assessment of the physical capacity of the players?

Do you film youth matches for subsequent analysis?

Do you have a full-time nutritionist at youth academy?

Do you have full-time doctor at youth academy?

Do you have a full-time physiotherapist at youth academy?

Is a player assessment done for each parent?

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes connected with the Cognitive Care Quality Area include:

COGNITIVE CARE Integration of football and academic studies; optimisation of logistics; educational support, multi-sport training, individual development; emotional and psychological support; holistic personal development

Do you have any communication with local schools about potential academy recruits?

Do you have a formally defined coaching methodology?

Do you evaluate biological age of your academy players?

wrap-around focus. This ensures that both the football and non- football parts of the education programme are aligned. Cognitive science is constantly evolving, and our understanding of human learning and how to improve it is also becoming more complex, leading to new tools and methodologies being used in football academies looking to achieve better results in caring for their players. Traditionally, it was coaches that predominantly tasked with ‘teaching’ players within a football academy. Now, and increasingly, the organisational

Cognitive Care within an academy system relates to both a player’s football- specific development and more general aspects of their education. Effectively, it deals with everything related to the 'how', 'what' and 'when' academy players learn and improve. Professional academy settings are increasingly realising that successful player development requires a holistic approach with a

“The starting points for learning are values!” Roberto Samaden, FC Internazionale Milano

Do you implement biobanding principles in age-group composition?

Do you conduct IQ test of coaches?

Do team or players have

Do you film youth matches for subsequent analysis?

non-football goals in such activities?

structure will include experts in various fields, as well as more formal academic teachers and tutors whose task it is to connect the football education to academic learning and ensure the player does not miss out, especially if they do not make it. We can objectively measure certain levels of Cognitive Care by analysing the numbers and types of staff employed, their qualifications and/or membership of respective professional groups. Academies can also measure the level of their players’ achievement compared to the level of sporting development. However, a proportion of efforts will be intangible, as it concerns individual development. Here, the focus could be on ensuring demonstrable commitment to sustained improvement in processes and methods.

Are there any activities related to non-verbal communication?

Do you have full-time individuals for education at your club’s youth academy?

Do you have a room specifically set-up for player education?

Do you have full time individual for welfare at your club’s youth academy?

Do you have a full-time sport psychologist at youth academy?

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes

FINANCES

connected with the Finances Quality Area include:

Percentage of club budget spent on youth development; revenue generation mechanisms; academy budget structure, financial planning horizon

Do you have a selection process or is any child of any ability free to attend?

Are training camps or talent days free or cost a fee?

F inance within the academy system relates to the dual aim of ensuring the correct amount of investment to sustain the delivery of all the other Quality Areas through academy operations, alongside the economic benefits or relevant revenue streams brought about by those operations. The quality of financial planning within academies is relatively new. As stated in a previous ECA study on youth

Are transfer fees from graduates sales put back into the academy?

academies, they are mainly seen as a cost centre rather than a revenue driver. The activity cycle in youth development is so long, and the returns often delayed, that it is sometimes easier not to set economic targets, and instead focus on productivity (another of the Quality Areas). Leading clubs are investing significant resources into their youth development programmes, so it is only natural that returns are increasingly required and monitored, including financial. However, the level of sophistication of

Do you invest in infrastructure in your partner clubs?

“To sell a player, first we need to bring him into the team”

Do you estimate market value of academy players?

Does the coach ask the academy about players in position(s) he wants to strengthen in the transfer window?"

Per Agren, Malmö FF

Do you have your own budget for

the youth academy?

financial planning and management in academies remains inconsistent, whether due to a lack of knowledge, personnel, tools or vision. It is an area clubs can improve, especially when so few academies plan further than one or two years. A full talent development process for an individual player can take anything up to 10 years or longer, which means that players graduating at the age of 18 or 19 are doing so on the back of decisions taken a decade or more ago. The level of the Finances Quality Area can be objectively measured by certain financial markers and ratios, such as the percentage of club budget spent on youth development, as well as the demonstrable quality, longevity and robustness of planning processes used by academy and club management.

Does the club define the budget of the youth academy before season?

Are there rules related to the calculation of value delivered by the academy if a player is promoted to the first team?

Do you have rules in place related to selling players from the youth academy before

they play in first team?

Which percent of total budget is academy budget?

Do you have a youth academy?

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes

FACILITIES Pitch quality – grass, artificial, earth or other; weather dependent or not; correlation with playing requirements – e.g. 11-a-side full-size pitch, quality and suitability of players accommodation facilities – boarding house, families etc

connected with the Facilities Quality Area include:

How many separate training fields do you have?

How many of those are full-sized? (i.e. official pitch size)

H aving the right Facilities within an academy system ensures that the operation is underpinned by the correct infrastructure as required by the management, staff and players based on their methodological, environmental and individual needs. It also means that the future development of the academy is supported by adequate infrastructure plans responsive to future needs.

How many of those are specialised? (e.g. for goalkeepers, for football-tennis etc)

Of course, even though Facilities by themselves do not develop players, the quality and functionality of working and living quarters is a significant marker of the ambition and professionalism of academy environments. Suitable fields, changing rooms, treatment areas, offices or teaching rooms all serve a direct purpose of enabling the development process to take place, and for many academies they are a primary tool to attracting young talent in the first place. UEFA recently published an important overview of academy infrastructure.

How old is the newest field you are using?

How old is the oldest field you are using?

Do you have individual locker rooms for all your age-group teams?

How many pitches do you play competitive matches on?

According to UEFA: “Training facilities and youth academies represent the very core of the European football ecosystem – even more so in the light of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it is having on football institutions. With the integration of more developed training infrastructure requirements in the 2018 Club Licensing and Fair Play Regulations, the importance of these two components has been further emphasised.” The quality of Facilities within an academy can most easily be measured by assessing the available infrastructure inventory and its suitability to the environmental conditions. We can also measure such variables as the existence of infrastructure development plans or the involvement of different academy specialists in devising those plans.

“VAR will influence in youth development in 5 years and will have to be included in training” Jean Kindermans, RSC Anderlecht

Do you have a room specifically set-up for player education?

Do you have a dedicated training facility for youth academy? (can be shared with first team)

When were the locker rooms last renovated? (or built, if new facility)

Do you invest in infrastructure in your partner clubs?

Do you have a hall of residence for young players?

YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23

12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes

TALENT IDENTIFICATION Recruitment plan, scouting software and administrative operations; quality and focus of network of schools

connected with the Talent Identification Quality Area include:

Do you have partner club(s)?

How many partner clubs do you have?

T he goal of Talent Identification within the academy system is to ensure the success, quality and sustainability of the process through which an academy identifies and recruits its players from its surrounding environment. Identifying ‘raw talent’ and subsequently accessing that talent is one of the most significant indicators of academy success.

Do you enforce the same methodology and playing style in partner club(s) as in yours?

Youth football isn’t yet fully covered by modern match analysis tools and so a lot of working processes in this area are encapsulated by traditional or old-fashioned scouting and access to information on current players and their profiles. Academies start by controlling information on players within their local city, district, town or local region, which can then be scaled to national or international coverage. All of this requires feet on the ground, but some clubs also choose to implement more complex identification systems based on networks of local partner clubs or regional training

“Players from abroad need at least one year to adapt”

Do you have partner club(s) outside of your country?

Do you have partner club(s) outside of your region?

Edmond Claus, AFC Ajax

How many children in total are registered with your partner clubs?

Do you have coach educators who visit partner clubs?

centres. These can provide additional layers of contact with the youth game beyond just having eyes on games. Successful work in Talent Identification needs continuity, awareness of current and future trends in player skills and their development, as well as a genuine connection to the grassroots game. The quality of an academy’s Talent Identification is inextricably linked to their productivity. Other factors can also be assessed, such as the numbers of players being monitored and the depth of their assessment. Clubs can also analyse their sources used for gathering their scouting information, and conduct stress testing on issues such as information retention when specialists leave the club.

Do you operate training camps or talent days for children not signed with your club?

Do you have selection process or is any child of any ability free to attend?

Are training camps or talent days free or for a fee?

How many scouts evaluate the same child?

Do you scout for talented players?

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12 QUALITY AREAS

The working processes connected with the Productivity Quality Area include:

PRODUCTIVITY Total number of professional players produced, and their playing/staying time; their transition/contract type; plus their involvement in certain competitions/ international participation

Is there an assessment of the technical capacity of the players?

Do you make any assessment of players?

A nalysing the Productivity of an academy involves identifying the quantifiable results of its work. To measure an academy’s productivity is to measure its efficiency, which is to assess its output/results in relation to its

Are there any team-level development goals formally set for age groups?

targets and resources employed. Of course, all the processes within an academy are geared to producing players in the first team, player sales or other possible key performance indicators. However, measuring this Productivity is far from a universal undertaking, not least because in many clubs there is an ongoing debate about the main goal(s), the strategic aims, and

Are there any individual development goals formally set for players?

Is there a diary of each player's development path?

“When we have a player in the academy, we always believe he can become a pro” Sune Smith-Nielsen, FC Copenhagen

Is efficiency of coaches measured?

Do you have 'project players'?

Are there any individual goals formally set for coaches on a regular basis?

what constitutes success. What is universal about

Productivity, though, is that the primary goal for most academies is to produce players for the first team to compete at the highest level possible. For top clubs, these goals may extend to producing players of an international level, too. So, the main challenges for clubs here centre around identifying a common position about its Productivity aims in the first place, then deliver a working structure to reach those targets, and to have the correct measurement and assessment processes to verify results.

Did the coach request details of the playing style in the academy when he came to the club?

Do first team scouts cooperate with youth team scouts?

Is development formally assessed and discussed with players on a regular basis?

Is academy director contract

related to efficiency?

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