CONCLUSIONS
T o recap, our survey revealed ‘what’ clubs are doing in their academies, including the most and least widely shared working processes, highlighting what everyone and almost nobody does. The interviews enabled us to understand more about the ‘how’ and ‘why’ and gave us a deeper understanding of the survey data… a first-hand account of how academies are being run. Using these working processes and Quality Areas has enabled us to see the primary focus areas of European youth academies; Productivity, Talent Identification, Human Capital and Cognitive Care. The statistical analysis reveals that some significant working processes place Human Capital and Cognitive Care at the core of academies, as player and coach/ staff welfare becomes increasingly important. We have also learned ‘how’ academies operate in terms of Talent Identification, Scouting, and Organisation, and how they align all of that with how they perform on the pitch and their DNA. It is clear that many academies are keen to keep up with trends, scout for staff and coaches, educate them about club processes and KPIs and help them achieve their own goals of professional growth. The most successful academies have a clear philosophy which is formalised by documents and processes and shared by all staff. Most academies develop and seek to implement a playing style and coaching methodology, but aligning it with their first team is less prominent/more difficult. It is also very important to have buy-in from the club for the development of the academy. This is recognised in a number of processes that allow academies to function independently, like budgeting
Together, our surveys and interviews have revealed new learnings about how academies operate…
and provision of resources to maintain things like long-term recruitment databases, as well as the sensitive and final stage of developing well-rounded humans into professional players – that of transition from academy to the first team. Academy Directors believe that the most important factors for successful transition are support from above (board and First Team Coach), support and communication with player(s) during transition, momentum of player promotion and player qualities. There appears to be no hard and fast single recipe for running a successful academy, but it’s clear that aligning operations within it, and the wider club, will support you in reaching your potential. It helps to identify working processes which might enable you to be more efficient – whether you miss anything from the list of what virtually everyone does (90%), or want to try to implement something that few academies do (25%). The latter option could include IQ testing, or progressing from basic social media training, to pro-actively educating players on building brands. By aligning a playing style with your 'true self' or DNA, the identity or community of the club, and by developing a working methodology and all other operations based on the values which came from it, and then challenging yourself with what others do, could also help you be more efficient. We hope this publication will help you inform your future plans and projects to increase performance, and even contribute to reaffirming the origin of your passion in youth development. We wish you, your players and staff every success for the future, and many enjoyable years of running the academy within your club.
CONCLUSIONS
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YOUTH FOOTBALL 2021-23
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