Gareth Southgate reveals FA youth football initiative

The Football Association has unveiled plans that could revolutionise youth football in England.

Under the proposals, children will not be allowed to play 11-a-side games until under-13 level.

"In 11-a-side matches there are fewer touches for players," said FA head of elite development Gareth Southgate.

"If we go to that format too young then it becomes much more of an athletic-based game. We have huge pitches that kids can't get around."

This and other proposals, such as games being played on smaller pitches and with smaller goals, are the result of an 18-month investigation of grassroots football.

Any changes will need to win support from 75% of the FA's voting shareholders at a vote in September.

The FA has highlighted that three of the most successful countries in recent years - Spain, France and Italy - do not allow 11-a-side games until under-14 level, and Southgate said he felt there was an appetite for change in the English game.

"People have seen the way that the likes of Barcelona have played this year and they're asking: 'Why can't our kids play that way?'," said the former Middlesbrough manager.

"We want them to play that way. We feel that what we are proposing will give them the environment to develop those skills.

"We have down the years produced some technically gifted players but we want to increase that pool of talent so that if our best one or two players get injured, there is a bigger talent pool to come in."

Research shows that children who are slower to mature physically are being forced out of the game before they reach their potential.

Factors such as the pitches they play on being too big means smaller more gifted players tend to lose out in favour of more athletic players.

Southgate stated: "It benefits the physically stronger players but there's a real danger that we lose the smaller, more technically gifted ones.

"There is a high drop-out of players in that nature."
Taken from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13634800.stm

What do you all think of these plans? Do you think they can really help develop more "technically gifted" players?

It's somewhat lazy of the F.A too look at other models and then try to follow suit. I just don't buy it myself.

The problem lies a lot deeper. Do our kids of today have the same level of application and work ethic of let's say 20 years ago before the Internet and video games boom? And this is just the starting point.

I don't see how not playing 11 a side matches will have any positive effect. Would it turn to 8 aside games on a smaller pitch which in effect gives the players the same amount of space anyway? Minimising the goal sizes is only going to make goalkeepers look better than they actually may be.

I grew up playing school, town and county football on full sized pitches from the age of 7 and there was never a scream for change back then so why now?

One thing that really gets my back up is the lack of playing fields these days in this country. I can't speak of every district in the UK but where I grew up there were playing areas everywhere. Now there is nowhere. We've got school caretakers throwing groups of kids off their grounds for having innocent kick-a bouts but where are they supposed to play? I wish I had a pound for every NO BALL GAMES sign I have seen in the past ten years! The green over the road from my house used to be full of kids playing football but the council have now decided to turn it into a horrible looking flower garden for dogs to do their business in. I joke you not!

My mates wife, who is a nurse, was telling me the other week that she has lost count of the amount of kids she has had to treat for cuts and bruises from playing football in the street. I know it's not the F.A's fault but surely they can work alongside the council in finding some solution.

And the fact that our next generation is in the hands of Gareth Southgate worries me. Anyway rant over!!

I think it's a small step to developing our younger players. I played football from when I was 7 or 8 until I was 15 and the step up when we hit secondary school was massive. Some people I use to play with were brilliant on the ball and could pass and cross really well, but the players that stood out were the ones with so much pace they could just breeze past everybody.

I don't think it's lazy to copy the same development that other countries use, as it looks to be far more successful. I think it's Holland that spend a lo of time developing players through the key age (I think it's 8-13); almost double the amount that we spend with our youngsters.

Hopefully Southgate's new plans to scrap a reserve league and bring in a compulsory under 21's league come in to place as well.

Got to agree with you there Churchill on the size of the jump going from 7/8 a side in Primary school to 11 a side in Secondary.

The thing that always got me when I first started Secondary was that when you are 12/13 years old, the guys that stand out the most are those with the better physical attributes such as height, speed and strength. There are very few guys at 12/13 that are technically very good.

It will be interesting to see if this works but it is very lazy of the FA to be looking towards other countries football structures. Being Scottish, I know first hand how poor our grass roots football is and I think both the FA and SFA should come together to revolutionize both our countries in term of the younger generation.

But are they actually Southgate's plans though? It would be interesting to see how hands-on he actually is in all of this. Call me sceptical but I see him as only a high profile spokesperson with a footballing background.

Oh I don't think he's the entire brains behind all of it; he will just be a spokesperson, but will go around the country looking at how things are done etc.

The revolution of youth football isn't a one man job: It need to be a collective effort supported by the FA and the big players within it. Anyway, I thought Trevor Brooking had been involved with development for years now as well?

Yeah I forgot about Trevor Brooking. Another pointless position at the F.A made out of sentiment.

Churchill wrote:Hopefully Southgate's new plans to scrap a reserve league and bring in a compulsory under 21's league come in to place as well.

I hope that doesn't happen the reserve league is optional, and it has many uses to teams. I'm not against them increasing the age of the youth league but I hope it doesn't have an impact upon the availability of these young players.

Also I hope the plans for changing the academy system don't get put in place.

I wouldn't call it lazy, I would call it the clever thing to do if they feel other countries youth systems are working better than ours then it makes sense to find out the differences between the systems and see if they can implement any changes to improve our system.

I saw a SSN half hour show where they highlighted how the set up in Holland is hugely benefitting the youngsters coming through nowadays and it was being looked at for this country to improve the ability to pass and use the ball within close quarters rather than our current method of give it to the big lad and run with it.
As a dad of a football mad son who’s not the biggest in the world but technically is head and shoulders above the rest of his class (and the one above) any movement to improve our game in this direction is a good step in my eyes.

Isn't Bergkamp in charge of Dutch development? I think there's also movement in this country towards letting a child spend more time with an academy, instead of a couple of training sessions a week; more like a boarding school being set up to educate them as well as teach them football.

If they implement the changes the Premier League are asking for to the academy system then it's just ridiculous. Spending more time with the academy, and more Championship teams having a system like Watford's can be good for the game, but some of their other plans are just plain ****.

What are some of the other plans? I can only remember a few that I've seen reported.

There was the plan to implement 4 levels of academy, the top ones can take players from anywhere (getting rid of what I think is the 90 minute rule). Pretty much all Premier League teams will get the top level, Championship will probably be split between the top two levels, the lower leagues really suffer though most clubs don't have money to be able to pay for extra coaches and teachers so will be put in levels 3 or 4, at these levels you are only able to get players after the age of either 11 or 16 meaning by the time the clubs get them these players will already have been rejected by half the teams in the country.

I shall search the internet for some articles on it.

Hmm, I can see the appeal of trying to give the best players the best facilities and coaches, but a lot of small clubs rely on selling youngsters to bigger clubs with sell-on fee clauses to bring in some money. Surely only big clubs will take the best players they can find, so the small academies will keep a core of their own players?

Category 1 or 2 can sign a player from the age of 9 but have him playing for the club from the age of 4, category 3 can sign a player from the age of 11, category 4 clubs can't sign a player until he's 16. The football league claim 30-40 league teams would just scrap their youth systems. They also want to changed the compensation system so even if a category 4 club manages to somehow find a good player they get a lot less for him upfront, but more from bonuses.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_6753866,00.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2011/02/football_league_fears_over_pla.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8324495/Henry-Winter-Premier-Leagues-elite-plan-radical-overhaul-of-academy-system-to-help-top-schoolboy-talent.html

I think this is a pretty pathetic attempt by the FA to 'solve' grassroots football.

Now while I don't have anything against looking at how different countries coach kids or introducing smaller teams and pitches, I just don't think it will have a great affect on the development of players as there simply isn't the right system/ structure in place to bring kids through from 5 years old to academy football.

I think it is a step in the right direction. 11-a-side games at low levels usually ends up being long ball games. Having smaller pitches with less players may encourage a more passing game.