Football academies more than just a game

For youth clubs, developing young players can reap financial rewards and in the UAE they are a key plank in the country's football ambitions

Freddy Sebastian, 20, originally from Guatemala, warms up prior to playing in a Maya Chapin soccer league game Wednesday, April 17, 2019, in Phoenix. As Guatemalans and other Central Americans flood to the U.S.-Mexico border, groups like the Maya Chapin youth soccer group in Phoenix are providing support for young people arriving alone or with families. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)Show less

On a daily basis, almost 2,500 students train in 50 football pitches at the spectacular $185 million football academy run by Chinese top division football club Guangzhou Evergrande.

In 2015, China was the first across Asia to adopt a reform programme that included a little over 20,000 schools offering specialised education in football, with the overall intention of converting China into a football powerhouse by 2050.

In the West, the domestic league (Major League Soccer) in the United States recently announced that its clubs will be recompensed for the costs of developing players within their youth academies who choose to sign with a non-US based club, conforming with Fifa regulations concerning training compensation and solidarity payments. Current professional players who would fall into this category include DeAndre Yedlin. As a youth, Yedlin played for the US Soccer Development Academy club Crossfire Premier. He signed for the English side Tottenham in 2014 before he was sold to his current team Newcastle United for £5 million (Dh24m in 2016. Seattle-born Yedlin, 25, also plays for the US national team.

Fifa rules state that 5 per cent of the transfer fee of a player should be paid directly to the youth clubs associated with the player's development between the ages of 12 and 23. Additionally, a compensation fee would have to be paid to the youth clubs associated with the player between the ages of 12 and 21.

In some cases all that could add up to a tidy sum. According to a study earlier this year by Swiss independent research and education organisation CIES Football Observatory, Paris-Saint Germain's Kylian Mbappe, 20, is the world's most valuable player. His price tag stands at €218 million (Dh897.6m). His youth career consisted of stints with AS Bondy (2004–2013) and Monaco (2013-2015). French national Mbappe moved from Monaco to PSG last year for a fee of €180m. Although official figures are unavailable, a 5 per cent fee of €10.9m would likely have been due to his youth clubs upon him joing the French giants.

In the UAE, meanwhile, programmes have been developed to enourage football uptake among the population and provide them with the best opportunities and faclities available.

In April 2018, the UAE government approved a federal decree that, as of last September, allows men married to Emirati women as well as children born in the UAE and any player who resides in the Emirates to register for sports clubs and, potentially, represent the country. The move is designed to identify talented individuals and develop a sense of accord across all nationalities.

UAE football clubs can register an unlimited number of expatriates in all age-group competitions, male and female, from ages 4 to 18. However, teams can register only six foreign players - three born in the UAE, three residing in the country - in their 18 and 21-year-old squads and senior squads.

“This is a long-awaited need for the expatriate community. Their participation in local sports will create a bigger pool of players for the national federations aside from the competition they will provide for the Emirati players,” Mohammed Khalfan Al Rumaithy, president of the General Sports Authority, said at the time.

As well as the government's move to develop organised football education, training and playing, some top European teams have set up youth academies in the Emirates, aimed at finding and developing young talent.

At a cost of about Dh2,000 for 30 sessions for a single child to be enrolled in one of these programmes – excluding the registration fees and optional kit fees - academies include Real Madrid Foundation Academy UAE, inaugurated in 2011 and established in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Another is Barca Academy, established in 2008 and based in Dubai.

“The core vision is to train, develop and improve young players in UAE on and off the field and give ​them an exclusive opportunity to learn the methodology and values from the unmatched Barca style of play and philosophy in the ever-growing football culture present in the country,” says Jordi Martinez, project director at Barca Academy.

As majority of the academy candidates across the UAE tend to be children of expats, the very nature of the enrolment tends to be primarily short term – some parents send their children to keep them busy after school while others recognise their kids' talents and want to further nurture those skills. profesasional success is a very long-shot for most but there are a few success stories.

“One of our former members was scouted for FC Barcelona and moved to La Masia [Barca's youth acdademy in Spain] and became top scorer in his age category for two seasons in a row," says Mr Martinez, who previously was project director of the Barca Academy in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

"Among other clubs our members were scouted for are Getafe FC in Spain, Al Wasl in Egypt and Fenerbahce FC in Hungary. One of our players was selected for National Team of Faroe Islands," he adds.

The value of a successful youth academy programme can be many fold. Outside the UAE, Amsterdam-based AFC Ajax, currently enjoying their best run in the Uefa European Champions League in decades, exemplifies the benefits of a strong youth set up. The club's progress in the Champions League this season - they play London-based Tottenham on Wednesday night in a game that may secure them a place in the final - is in large part thanks to the youthfulness of the side.

And Europe's premier club competition is a prize well worth pursuing.

Current Champions League cup holders Real Madrid earned €88.6m in prize money from Uefa last season, while beaten finalists Liverpool pocketed €81.2m.

Ajax reaps the rewards of a strong youth development programme. The Dutch powerhouse has delivered some of the best players to big leagues out of its own youth academy over the years. Johan Cruijff, Marco van Basten and Dennis Bergkamp are just a few of the international stars who have successfully completed the training programme at the De Ajax youth academy.

Those players and others who made it had to work long and hard to get to the top.

“The kids who get to play at Ajax are solely selected by our scouting and the technical staff," says Saïd Ouaali, head of Youth Academy at Ajax. "Every player will then be judged every year, to see whether or not they can stay at the academy. There is no opportunity to register without getting scouted.

“If a player manages to stay at the academy until he reaches Jong Ajax [the club's second team], he has an 80 per cent chance of becoming a pro football player [with Ajax or somewhere else].

"The further you get, the harder it becomes to maintain your place and to reach the ultimate objective - to play in the Amsterdam Arena. One or two players make it to the first team each year,” says Mr Ouaali.

“At AFC Ajax, the training of top football players takes centre stage. That is why the youth academy is also known as the 'breeding ground of Dutch football'.

Although not every every kid who plays football will grow up to be superstar like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s clear that playing sports from an early age can have substantial benefits later in life, no matter what you grow up to do.

And that exactly is the goal of the academies such as Barca's in the UAE, according to Mr Martinez.

“At Barca Academy Dubai, we teach players the concepts of football, aimed at raising skill levels of all participants while at the same time focusing on personal growth by teaching the core life values that are so representative of FC Barcelona: respect; effort; ambition; teamwork; humility.”

Of course, a multimillion-euro football club contract wouldn't go amiss either.