There are always two sides to a story, and, as the saying goes, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. Having your child scouted and invited to a professional football academy is filled with excitement, pride, and hope, mixed with fear, anxiety, and nervousness. In managing those emotions, it can be hard to see a professional academy for what it is, perhaps even more so if you are new to the environment.
But at the heart of the existence of professional football academies, there lies a secret that is very rarely spoken about. Fundamentally, professional football academies are businesses with a product to sell. And the product they are looking to sell is your child. Could you just let that sink in for a moment?
But I don’t want to sell my child
Well, that is reassuring. In the middle of a double child meltdown at school drop-off time, I’ve been open to offers! But once you sign, you’re not in control. It seems quite obvious when you think about it. Professional football clubs are businesses, and the players they employ are commodities. Therefore, it stands to reason that the production line of young players developed through the academy is the next set of commodities. So much so that from the age of nine, academies ask parents to sign registration forms, and a monetary value of £3,000 per year is added to the player, which must be paid if another club wants them. Under the current Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), the most recent youth development framework adopted in England, annual compensation is £3000 per year for a child between the ages of 9 and 11. This figure rises to between 12,500 and £40,000 per year between the ages of 12 and 16, depending on the category of the academy your child attends. The table below outlines examples of how much a club would have to pay to “transfer” your child into their academy.
Other factors are included, and the compensation is owed to a club up to the age of 24, even if the player is out of contract. In that respect, extra payments must be met if, for example, the player has made first-team appearances. This scheme does not just exist in England either. While the EPPP only covers academies in England and Wales, to give some other examples, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has the “Training Compensation and Solidarity Mechanism”, in Italy, there are “Career Premiums” and “Preparation Premiums”. At the same time, Major League Soccer in the United States of America have adopted something called “Solidarity Payments”. The aim of each of the schemes is to protect the club that has developed the player. And for us as parents, guardians, and family members, this is extremely important. These rules are not protecting the players, they are protecting the business model of the clubs.
The cost of academies
Finding out about the cost of running an academy is tricky, but there are some markers we can use to help understand. In 2024, for example, an argument over the transfer of Connor Barron to Rangers from Aberdeen led to a lot of statements. In there, Aberdeen said they spent £2 million a year on running their academy. Likewise, a report from UEFA suggests some of the big clubs can spend over £4 million per season. Lower-level academies (for example, category three academies) are somewhere in the range of £500,000 per season, while category two academies can be around £3 million per season. All this adds up to a substantial level of investment. So it is important we understand that before we enter into the contracts and registrations. Remember, the opposite does not occur, there's no compensation for families if the club simply discards your child, no payment for the journeys around the country or for the resources you invested in getting him to training, matches, and tournaments. Nothing for the times you have to leave work early or the friends' birthdays the kids miss, the education they sacrifice, and the physical scars he accumulated.
Making the most of time in a professional football academy means understanding what you are entering. I speak with Heads of Academies, Player Care Officers and Coaches weekly, and all speak about the same thing... "at the end of the day, we're a business".
