Project Brave rumbles on..

[LordHawHaw]

It's crazy to me why any Scottish football fan outside Celtic and Sevco  think the SFA is there in any other capacity than to serve the needs of Sevco and Celtic club and fans.

To be honest you deserve everything you get, you had the opportunity but bottled it completely to break the ruling of the roost by two clubs, not only does that tell me the the authorities don't give a &%_£  about non "OF" fans but your own boards don't either...if fact it seems to me that you all are happy with us shit£ing on you..the odd final keeps morale up I suppose

[SilverWolfe]

Forgive me if I'm not quite understanding the whole Project Brave thing. Its not something I've looked too much into yet.

Wouldn't it be a good thing for the smaller clubs in Scotland if the funding were to be mainly distributed to the big 5? When the smaller clubs bring through a good young player they inevitably lose him for peanuts anyway. With the cost of running their own youth systems would they not be better off financially? They would also be able to pick up very well trained players for free when they are released for not being good enough to play for the big 5.

I'm seeing it as the smaller clubs saving money but still being able to pick up good Pros down the line cheaply. It also gives the youth prospects the best facilities and coaches rather than having them spread across the Country possibly learning under weaker coaches and using poorer facilities. 

[ayrmad]

On 08/10/2017 at 09:37, happyaccie said:

Once again the SFA in their narrow minded , inept manner have put the long term future of the game and some clubs at peril. I would as an experiment like to see these proposals advanced and made SFA policy because only then will the SFA be made aware of the major downside of their "elitist clubs". It would not take them long to grasp the fact that although the "elitist clubs" have the financial resources more available to fund a youth programme than other clubs such as Ross County, Hamilton , Motherwell Thistle etc these elitist clubs have a poor record in bringing through talented youngster's , it's only the aforementioned " minnow " clubs who through necessity seem to have in place relatively successful youth programmes in Scotland . Apart from Mckay at sevco and Teirney & Ralston at Celtic I find it hard to recall when these 2 "elitist" clubs churned players off their production line with great frequency.The SFA need to represent all of their member clubs in an equal manner or else the longevity of the sport continuing to be played professionally in the long term in Scotland will come under threat.

Who are these 5 or 6 sides going to play?

How the f**k can playing against massively inferior teams on a regular basis help nurture our most talented youngsters,  we must be the most clueless nation on the planet when it comes producing young talent.

[Loonytoons]

It also gives the youth prospects the best facilities and coaches rather than having them spread across the Country possibly learning under weaker coaches and using poorer facilities. 

What facilities specifically do you think a youngster actually requires to become a better player?

[Loonytoons]

It also gives the youth prospects the best facilities and coaches rather than having them spread across the Country possibly learning under weaker coaches and using poorer facilities. 

What facilities specifically do you think a youngster actually requires to become a better player?

[SilverWolfe]

What facilities specifically do you think a youngster actually requires to become a better player?

I'm not in any way qualified to answer the question tbh but off the top of my head I'd imagine access to;

Indoor pitches during the winter with state of the art playing surfaces
State of art sports science facilities
Gyms
Proper dietary advice
Top class video analysis facilities
Top coaches
Experts in all of the above

I'm sure there are many more things that cost a lot of money that would help develop young players.

I would imagine focusing the funding to 5 big clubs would provide kids with a better chance to progress than running about a field with a couple of coaches.

Just my opinion of course

Who are these 5 or 6 sides going to play?
How the f**k can playing against massively inferior teams on a regular basis help nurture our most talented youngsters,  we must be the most clueless nation on the planet when it comes producing young talent.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but the 5 teams will be playing against the lower league clubs as colt teams to the big 5. It seems fairly obvious to me that this is the first step in that direction.

[vikingTON]

Project Brave and similar, shite proposals are the natural response of an SFA that depends on Hamish Husband and his pals for much of their revenue. The sort of whamees who genuinely think that Scottish football clubs largely exist to produce talent for the utterly shite concept of international football, and to provide the gormless Tartan Army with an excuse for a binge-drink jolly at a major tournament. The sooner that the SFA is put in a box and left to handle appointing officials and pretty much nothing else, the better it will be for the domestic game.

[Staggie52]

51 minutes ago, Tartantony said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but the 5 teams will be playing against the lower league clubs as colt teams to the big 5. It seems fairly obvious to me that this is the first step in that direction.

 

So you want them to have the best of everything so they can play on a muddy (name your least favourite second division ground) during the winter against a team consisting mainly of players that couldn’t make it any higher and others on their way down? What happened to the theory about getting better by playing against better players?

[the jambo-rocker]

What fucks me off is vacancies like these for example.

http://www.heartsfc.co.uk/pages/vacancies

This is a placement for an combined U13 and u15 coaching role on a part time basis. 10-12 hours a week. Fair dos so far. Then it is asked that  "Ideal candidates MUST be qualified to Elite Youth A Licence and/or A Licence as an essential qualification". Now to save you the trouble of pricing  up how much it costs to achieve that level of licensing; it's roughly over £5,000 in the qualifcations, permitting you pass the B license and A license first time, for a part time placement, but hey, at least we pay the living wage.

The SFA doesn't have the luxury of government funding when it comes to income, but charging 25% more than what Iceland charge for getting to an A license is stupid enough in it's on right. Fair enough, Germany  is swimming in money and they can get away with charging €800 for the A license course, but there absolutely should be a middle ground for this is terms of much it costs. Otherwise people with aspirations of coaching are going to turn their noses up to such nonsense pricing, meaning less qualified coaches and a poorer level of youth coaching. Especially if you can only do it on a part time basis.

[ICTChris]

Am I right in my summary of this - Project Brave is trying to improve standards by only awarding elite status and SFA assistance to clubs that can achieve a certain status.  Effectively that will reduce the number of clubs with elite academies to the city clubs, who can afford this, and others who can scramble together the cash?

Roy MacGregor raises a lot of good points - clubs could end up financially hamstrung by the criteria and it would then effectively make youth development in Scottish football for rich clubs or those with a benefactor.

My club has already cut our under 20s team following relegation but apparently have a decent crop of Under 19s and 17s.  If we need to spend £500,000 for elite status I can see clubs doing what Brentford did and getting rid of their youth system. It makes sense.

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Am I right in my summary of this - Project Brave is trying to improve standards by only awarding elite status and SFA assistance to clubs that can achieve a certain status.  Effectively that will reduce the number of clubs with elite academies to the city clubs, who can afford this, and others who can scramble together the cash?

Roy MacGregor raises a lot of good points - clubs could end up financially hamstrung by the criteria and it would then effectively make youth development in Scottish football for rich clubs or those with a benefactor.

My club has already cut our under 20s team following relegation but apparently have a decent crop of Under 19s and 17s.  If we need to spend £500,000 for elite status I can see clubs doing what Brentford did and getting rid of their youth system. It makes sense.

Sort of.

They've drawn up criteria that needs to be met in order to be awarded "Elite" status. For example, you need 6 full time staff, you need certain dedicated positions filled such as Sports Science etc. There are also performance criteria to be met for example there's a co-efficient score based on the number of youth players you've got out on loan etc. That was a point of contention for Motherwell who had players around their first team squad but weren't benefitting in the same way as say, Aberdeen, were as they just loaned all their youth players out and were getting minutes in the lower leagues.

All of that, particularly the infrastructure and staffing stuff, costs money so there's an element of natural selection there. Equally though if you want to grade something and set a bar for standards then you need criteria to meet. That's fine.

However the main objection, which may or may not have been resolved, was that the original Project Brave planned to limit the "Elite" academies to 6 (I think) and clubs would be invited to tender applications which would *of course* be awarded on merit (*massive side-eye*). In that situation if you weren't successful in your application then, regardless of whether you met the criteria or not, you wouldn't qualify for "Elite" status and that would be that. No matter which way you slice it, that seems unfair in this context.

You've got clubs like, for example, Motherwell who have made youth development the foundation of their business plan; Youth Cup winners in 2015/16, semi-finalists in 16/17, 5th in the Development league last season, 6th the season before and currently sitting 2nd in the league with a clear pathway from Academy to first team. At present Motherwell have representation at every national Youth age group from u21s down.  There's also a historic track record of developing players through the Academy/youth team system; currently Cadden, Campbell going back through Ben Hall, Lee Erwin (who between them brought in the best part of £750k to the club in fees) to Jamie Murphy, back to McFadden, Pearson, Hammell, McCulloch and even going back as far as the likes of Boyd, McCart and O'Donnell. The next in line will be Turnbull, Hastie and Semple with players lined up in the system beyond that.

So, going by the original plan, regardless of all that Motherwell's application could be overlooked purely because there's an arbitrary number of "Elite" slots available. Even if Motherwell met all the staffing and infrastructure requirements then their application could simply be overlooked in favour of Aberdeen, Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs +1 getting the "Elite" places. Same goes for Thistle who have massive investment in the Thistle Weir Academy but who possibly don't have the KPI co-efficient in their favour. They're literally building a new training complex yet they could conceivably be frozen out of being awarded "Elite" status.

[ayrmad]

1 hour ago, the jambo-rocker said:

What fucks me off is vacancies like these for example.

http://www.heartsfc.co.uk/pages/vacancies

This is a placement for an combined U13 and u15 coaching role on a part time basis. 10-12 hours a week. Fair dos so far. Then it is asked that  "Ideal candidates MUST be qualified to Elite Youth A Licence and/or A Licence as an essential qualification". Now to save you the trouble of pricing  up how much it costs to achieve that level of licensing; it's roughly over £5,000 in the qualifcations, permitting you pass the B license and A license first time, for a part time placement, but hey, at least we pay the living wage.

The SFA doesn't have the luxury of government funding when it comes to income, but charging 25% more than what Iceland charge for getting to an A license is stupid enough in it's on right. Fair enough, Germany  is swimming in money and they can get away with charging €800 for the A license course, but there absolutely should be a middle ground for this is terms of much it costs. Otherwise people with aspirations of coaching are going to turn their noses up to such nonsense pricing, meaning less qualified coaches and a poorer level of youth coaching. Especially if you can only do it on a part time basis.

In all honesty it'll need Scottish Government intervention to get us to where we need to go, neither the SFA nor the clubs are going to take the hit required to produce the 5,000 to 10,000 A ,B and Pro licensed coaches required to do it properly.

[cilitbang]

It all makes sense now with dipshits genetic claims last night.

Fewer clubs in Project Brave = less kids overall in the setup = requires less Human Growth Horomone overall to pump into all kids in Project Brave

[happyaccie]

6 hours ago, Tartantony said:

Forgive me if I'm not quite understanding the whole Project Brave thing. Its not something I've looked too much into yet.

Wouldn't it be a good thing for the smaller clubs in Scotland if the funding were to be mainly distributed to the big 5? When the smaller clubs bring through a good young player they inevitably lose him for peanuts anyway. With the cost of running their own youth systems would they not be better off financially? They would also be able to pick up very well trained players for free when they are released for not being good enough to play for the big 5.

I'm seeing it as the smaller clubs saving money but still being able to pick up good Pros down the line cheaply. It also gives the youth prospects the best facilities and coaches rather than having them spread across the Country possibly learning under weaker coaches and using poorer facilities. 

It is the fact that the big 5 as you say are crap at running youth programmes that I object too, how many regular 1st team players has your development programme produced over the last 20 years , off the top of my head I can think of 6/7, whilst using the club I support as a guide many times I have seen our stripped 16  for a game containing 6 for a match at any given time over the last 7/8 years.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

6 hours ago, Tartantony said:

Forgive me if I'm not quite understanding the whole Project Brave thing. Its not something I've looked too much into yet.

Wouldn't it be a good thing for the smaller clubs in Scotland if the funding were to be mainly distributed to the big 5? When the smaller clubs bring through a good young player they inevitably lose him for peanuts anyway. With the cost of running their own youth systems would they not be better off financially? They would also be able to pick up very well trained players for free when they are released for not being good enough to play for the big 5.

I'm seeing it as the smaller clubs saving money but still being able to pick up good Pros down the line cheaply. It also gives the youth prospects the best facilities and coaches rather than having them spread across the Country possibly learning under weaker coaches and using poorer facilities. 

The bolded is a huge problem. It is not cheap to get a youth player.  Dundee United had to pay £200,000 for Charlie Telfer.  Youth wages are peanuts to Celtic so they can keep as many youngsters on the books even if it is clear there is no chance they will get to play in the Celtic first team.

Centralising youth development means smaller clubs lose 3 valuable things

1. Talented young players to progress to their first team squad

2. Compensation for identifying young players who move onto bigger clubs

3. Training compensation for future fees

 

 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Also f**k uncle Roy who was championing the 8 team plan when it was clear his team were in the boat. Now the SFA are cutting it to 6 (Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, SFA Academy) he suddenly sees all the problems.

[7-2]

8 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

The bolded is a huge problem. It is not cheap to get a youth player.  Dundee United had to pay £200,000 for Charlie Telfer. 

That was during the initial phase of the SFA's Save Our ***s fund raising campaign though.

[RandomGuy.]

Let's never forget that Celtic have a massive history of demanding six figure sums for absolute nobodies who'll never feature them. They demanded over £100k of us for Rocco Quinn FFS.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

47 minutes ago, 7-2 said:

That was during the initial phase of the SFA's Save Our ***s fund raising campaign though.

I think it is now all documented how much a compensation is due for a player based on defined criteria.

It made Hearts offer in the summer for Chris Cadden laughable as it was below the statuary compensation we would receive if he moved on if he refused to sign a new, improved contract.

[SilverWolfe]

It is the fact that the big 5 as you say are crap at running youth programmes that I object too, how many regular 1st team players has your development programme produced over the last 20 years , off the top of my head I can think of 6/7, whilst using the club I support as a guide many times I have seen our stripped 16  for a game containing 6 for a match at any given time over the last 7/8 years.

Off the top of my head I can think of the following who came through our academy and played for our first team.

*international cap

Marshall*
Mulgrew*
Odea*
Kennedy*
McManus*
Caddis*
Ralston
Fisher
Tierney*
Maloney*
Mcgeady*
Henderson
Miller*
McGeouch
Irvine*
McGregor
Forrest*
Wallace*
Burchill*
Watt*
Smith*
Beattie*

Others that didn't play for us but being current internationalists include McGovern, Robertson and Bannan and thats not including the countless players in Scotland who have had a decent career.

I think you are being exceptionally harsh on Celtic. Our youth programme does pretty well, it may not always produce amazing first team players but we provide a good amount of players that make it as a pro elsewhere.

Last season during our invincible domestic season we fielded 10 academy players. 6 this season so far with 4 appearing in the CL.