Fear and loathing in Premier League academy football: Scouts in a pen, no team sheets and denying access

At a Manchester City Under-16s game last month, 21 academy scouts were corralled into a tight square next to one of the corner flags, far from the rest of the spectators.

They had not congregated together out of choice. This was the designated area, outlined by bright cones, other clubs’ talent spotters were frogmarched to before kick-off.

A few years ago, it would have been a peculiar sight. Today, it is a scene recreated every weekend across most of the Premier League academy landscape.

The motive? To keep rival scouts isolated from parents, so they cannot lure away your top players.

The Athletic reported last month that rising tensions between Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United have led to scouts being denied access to youth games. This has been interpreted as a response to Rio Ngumoha’s move from Chelsea to Liverpool this summer.

It was a coup for Liverpool to take one of the country’s most exciting 16-year-old talents from a direct competitor. Chelsea have since rejected accreditation requests from both Liverpool and United for youth games at their Cobham training centre — while there has been claim and counter-claim over what the response to that stance was.

This scenario serves as a clear indication of how protectionist Premier League clubs are becoming over their academy talents.

There was also an issue with match accreditation between Midlands neighbours Aston Villa and Derby County, after the former rejected an application citing a limit on numbers, which saw the Championship club retaliate in kind.

But the competitive landscape transcends regional battles for the best kids in certain catchment areas. The battle for homegrown talent is becoming fiercer, without hierarchy, as horse-trading over talented young footballers becomes more like a game of battleships.

One factor is that the value of homegrown players has inflated in the era of profit and sustainability rules (PSR). Academy graduates who get sold on represent pure profit on clubs’ balance sheets.

“It all stems from Brexit. It’s created a monster,” says one experienced Premier League senior academy scout, who like others in this article, spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships. “It has ramped up the need to take boys from other English clubs tenfold, as (since Brexit in 2020) they can’t sign players from abroad before the age of 18.”

Multiple senior sources at Category 1 academies (the highest of the four grades) reiterate that belief. For many years, the top clubs in England did not aggressively pursue each other’s top youth players, partly because they could look abroad so freely. They would tend to mine those from the tiers below, which would not do much damage to relations, but in 2021 Manchester United took then-16-year-old Ethan Ennis from Liverpool, which caused some consternation.

That trend is leading to strained relations. Also this summer, Ryan McAidoo moved from Chelsea to Manchester City, while record-breaking striker Chido Obi-Martin left Arsenal for United as he believed it presented a better pathway to first-team football.

Sources say Obi-Martin stands to be paid weekly wages into the tens of thousands once he turns 17 at the end of this month and signs a professional contract.

There is even stiff competition for academy staff, with several switching between the top teams in recent years. City in particular have lost over half a dozen academy scouts to Newcastle, Liverpool and United, but have a good relationship with Chelsea due to the overlap in senior staff: Glenn van der Kraan joined the west London club as academy technical director from City last month, while their co-director of recruitment Joe Shields was previously at City, where he worked with his eventual successor Samuel Fagbemi.

And competition also exists with sides at lower levels. Only two years ago, Leeds — now of the second-tier Championship — made an audacious attempt to land Ngumoha, a sign of how teams further down the football pecking order believe their offer of a route to first-team football can usurp the power of a club’s name.

Ennis joined Manchester United from Liverpool (Ole Martin Wold/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

The fear of a tribunal ruling an inflated compensation fee should be paid for a young player no longer carries the same threat either. An academy director says that this is because the Premier League’s elite player performance plan (EPPP) tariffs, despite being increased by 70 per cent in 2022-23 to reflect the expenditure since EPPP was introduced, are not prohibitive enough to dissuade potential suitors.

“The market is mad at the moment. Players are moving everywhere and kids and families want everything now,” the same academy director says. “The Premier League has created this. EPPP has made it easier for boys to move because the compensation isn’t much of a barrier. It is leading to complete opportunism.”

It will typically cost clubs buying a 16-year-old more than £1million to do so, as selling clubs often threaten to take the case to a tribunal. This leads to clubs paying over and above the listed compensation figures to avoid a messy and potentially inflated transfer. Between under-nine and under-12 levels, the figures are seen as set in stone. But many clubs get their best talents to commit to their scholarship contract early, which effectively takes the player to the end of their under-18s eligibility and adds negotiating value for the selling club.

The incentive is that it is still cheaper than buying someone at 18 when they are a first-team player and subject to a transfer fee that could be in the tens of millions. Even if the player does not fulfil their potential, British teenagers carry a premium and it means the risk of losing their investment is diluted. This is exactly why more resources are being pumped into academy scouting and more ‘emerging talent’ departments are being created.

One club source cites internal research by the Premier League that it remains the case those players who join at pre-academy age are most likely to make it through the system of the team involved. It has also found that the number of academy players being released is dropping, a trend one head of academy recruitment believes is one positive of Brexit. Late developers are being retained, and viewed with a long-term lens. He thinks players will be kept until they can command a fee, even if they are not going to make the top-level grade.

“The other interesting part the research has found is that (age) 14 has become the key competitive moment for clubs,” says a Premier League talent chief. “That’s the game-changer that never used to be there, and Brexit has driven it. At that age, their two-year registration ends and they can deregister with their club and move freely for much less compensation. It is also a far easier age to predict outcomes (in terms of players making it in the game).”

The Premier League’s rules state all clubs must permit scouts access to their academy games, as long as they have notified them of their attendance by noon on the last working day before the fixture is played. It does not stipulate, however, what level of hosting or pitch-side view they are entitled to, as clubs have their own codes of conduct due to the matches being held at their premises, such as the training complex.

“Week after week, we are put in pens,” says a youth scout from a major Premier League club. “Clubs seem hell-bent on making it impossible to get information. You don’t get team sheets, so you need to listen to the coach or the boys for names.

Liverpool Under-18s in the FA Youth Cup last season (Jess Hornby/Getty Images)

“Ideally you’d be on the halfway line, so you have a good vantage point, but now it is at a corner flag, or behind a perimeter fence behind a goal. It is getting worse and worse. It only changes when you go to the clubs in the bottom leagues who would love their kids to get scouted and get a payday.

“The ethos of EPPP is to help kids play as high up as possible, but when they get released from Category 1 academies there are some clubs who won’t know them because they have been hidden. They then ask those very clubs to help find them a club, but a lot of players and their agents do not want to go on trial now.”

The Premier League advises all clubs to share their views and facilitate various forums that actively request feedback to enhance the experience. It should be noted, however, that all 20 clubs have their say on any rule changes and it requires 14 of them to vote in favour for it to come into action.

Arsenal have started to issue team sheets to visiting scouts and agents in recent months, which is seen as a significant gesture to try to change the culture. Most clubs say they do not offer them for under-18 games due to child protection rules. This is seen by most scours as a cosy excuse, as in Scotland and most European countries they are available at every match.

The idea that not having a team sheet means a scout cannot identify targets is widely scoffed at. A scout with three decades of experience sees it as an advantage as it means he can leverage his extensive contacts to find out who is who. Some scouts have taken to staking out a coffee shop near a training ground, as it is where parents tend to meet. It would also not breach any rules to speak to them there.

“I’m there to look at the worst players the big clubs have,” says a chief scout from a category 2 academy. “They should see us as a partner rather than a threat. But we get no help, so we do the same in turn with them. That’s just how it is.”

Having a gaggle of visiting scouts herded into one small area means that conversation about players can become comical — they are ultimately competing for the same talents. At least one club has decided to use this to their advantage by infiltrating the area with their own staff.

“They are treated like lepers at most places, so we give them tea, coffee and biscuits… then make sure we have staff among them to hear who is looking at who,” says a staff member from that club. “They try not to be too opinionated or give away much to each other about their targets or positions, but someone always spills. It is often the best intel we can get about our own players and their value.”

Football is a cynical industry. One club recently had to phone up another and complain about one of their scouts. He had been working the touchline and enquiring as to which player was with which parent. His club were warned that either they educate him that this is not allowed or the other team would be forced to prevent them sending any scouts.

Some clubs are getting up to 30 scout and agent accreditation requests for individual games, which sometimes alerts them to the fact that one of their players is becoming a serious target. Some clubs react to this by moving that player up an age group for the day so the visiting scouts do not get to see who they were hoping to.

City and Leeds in the FA Youth Cup final (Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images)

Manchester neighbours United and City are two clubs who tend to request three scouts per matchday at an academy, so they can take in every game going on across the age levels — though teams usually stipulate they cannot move from pitch to pitch. When one club realised scouts were standing between two pitches and swivelling their heads to keep tabs on both games, they moved them down into the corner.

The ability to watch players in international football and at tournaments means clubs will still eventually be able to watch the top players, though. At the under-16 National Tournament at Loughborough University last month — comprising 28 Category 1 and Premier League academies — there were over 200 scouts in attendance.

The creation of Eyeball, the first scouting platform for elite youth football — which has over 100,000 players across the world on its database — has also changed the nature of youth scouting. With the service having expanded to offer comprehensive video footage of most Category 2, 3 and 4 academies in England, clubs have been able to transition from in-person scouting to a more balanced approach — similar to first-team recruitment — in which they assign video scouts to assess different clubs and players.

The protective nature of Category 1 clubs is highlighted again, though, as they strictly only pay for access to watch the other clubs and refuse to have their own academy games uploaded onto Eyeball.

When a player under the age of 18 gets signed by a Premier League club, the deal is vetted by the league’s five-step review process. This is an investigation designed to ensure there was no breach of the rules involved in the transfer.

The process was brought in to ensure the safeguarding of children, that no club or agent is pressuring a boy into the move and that it is for footballing reasons. It was voted through several years ago and was initially designed to only oversee moves between fellow Category 1 clubs. Over the last 18 months or so, its remit has been expanded to include all academy transfers.

The clubs need to agree to the compensation and that the transfer is valid, while parties including the player’s previous and new schools also have to approve before the club he’s joining submit a registration application. The Premier League then hires an independent third-party organisation to conduct interviews with the player, his parents and those involved in the negotiations at both the selling and buying club.

If there are more details required or areas of concern, further interviews can be requested. This happened with a recent move between two Premier League sides that was eventually given the OK after several months of investigation.

A source told The Athletic the five-step process was a topic of discussion at the last Premier League sporting directors’ meeting, as well as at the most recent academy directors’ meeting.

Several scouts at one major club informed The Athletic they are told not to mention the names of potential signings when communicating by email. This is so the five-step process can be conducted largely through one person, with no paper trail of who first watched the player and how their name was raised through the scouting system to become a target.

WhatsApp plays a role in the recruitment world (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

The Premier League requests that those involved hand over their phones so communications between agents or coaches involved can be checked. Several scouts say it is very easy to circumvent the investigation through the use of a disposable burner phone, disappearing messages on WhatsApp or even simultaneously deleting any messages that could come under scrutiny.

When quizzed on more serious potential wrongdoing, such as payments being made to parents and agents, or houses being rented on their behalf, firm denials are difficult to disprove.

One senior academy figure says the review is “pointless” as it rarely finds one single rule breach and is not strict enough. However, a figure at another club says that while there does not tend to be many sanctions and some underhand approaches continue to happen, it does act as a deterrent.

What is certain, however, is that Premier League clubs are not being put off chasing the best talents — even if it risks upsetting relations with other teams.

Additional reporting: Laurie Whitwell, Liam Twomey and James Pearce

(Photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)