Grow your own

By Simon Hart

The days when Celtic FC were able to become champions of Europe with a team comprising players all born within a 45km radius of Parkhead may be long gone, but UEFA is hoping that proposals on the development of homegrown players will help redress the balance a little.

Fixed number
The wish of the European governing body is that all clubs across the continent have in their squad a fixed number of homegrown players - undecided as yet but it could be anything from six to eight. The size of squads would be limited, possibly to 25, thus ensuring that young players got more chance to play regularly. These plans were under discussion once again this week as the UEFA Executive Committee met in Vienna and UEFA hopes to be able to present a final proposal to its congress in Tallinn in April next year, with the aim of introducing it in time for the 2005/06 season.

Level playing field
One argument is that UEFA's proposals will help create a more level playing field at a time when European football is becoming increasingly dominated by a select few. Another is that homegrown players are important to maintain the connection between a club and its fans.

Pertinent point
Arguably the most pertinent is that clubs will have to focus on developing their own talent rather than buying it in from elsewhere. This argument certainly resonates with Gilberto Madaíl, president of the Portuguese Football Federation, whose country is renowned for producing exceptional young players - and then losing them.

Ruined careers
A co-opted member of the UEFA Executive Committee, Madaíl believes UEFA's proposals will help to protect his country's young players. He believes too many of them have left home too soon and damaged their careers in the process, and cites Marco Caneira, Simão Sabrosa and Hugo Viana as three players who all left Sporting Clube de Portugal as teenagers, struggled abroad and had to return home to rebuild their confidence.

'Too soon'
"During the last four or five years we have lost a lot of young players," Madaíl said. "They have their family here and their friends and suddenly they take off and they are lost. It is because of the agents, they put the money on the table and say, 'Now you must go'. There are lots of players who left Portugal for money, they went to clubs where they were not supported properly. We have important cases of non-success, players who've been abroad and are not the same players. They have been taken from home too soon."

Worrying trend
Roger Vanden Stock, president of Belgian champions RSC Anderlecht, also welcomes any proposals to encourage clubs to develop their own youngsters. Like Madaíl, he attended recently the 2nd UEFA Seminar on the European Union where association chiefs were urged to embrace the proposed Europe-wide policy, and he is also worried that boys are being lured abroad at an increasingly young age. "I have a 14-year-old at the moment who for €1000 could have gone to a French club," he said. "We managed to reason with him in the end."

Coaching incentive
For Vanden Stock, there is the risk of damage not just to young players' careers in the professional game, but also to the entire coaching pyramid. He said: "Most of the training of youngsters is still done by volunteers and for most people, their pleasure is to say they formed such a player who became a star. If they're taken away before they develop fully, the carrot to continue educating is gone."