EastStandBlue
Life President
- Joined
- May 29, 2005
- Messages
- 15,519
It must serve as a pretty good advertisement for our youth system if we can show any prospects that we have developed players deemed good enough to go onto Liverpool and Everton (and Derby...) and also that if those clubs come calling we wont stand in their way. It must make us an attractive proposition to potential young players.
Also, getting (possibly) £250,000 for a player that hasnt played for us....plus a % if he goes on to be sold seems a pretty reasonable deal. Obviously if he goes on to be a world beater and £10mil plus player but leaves on a bosman, or sees out his career at liverpool a la Gerrard or Carragher then we don't see much benefit beyond £250,000, but not sure we could hav expected much more money.
It does... Abalimba chose us over a number of Premier League clubs when he signed for our Centre of Excellence. When we exchanged our young 'keeper (whose name escapes me) with Arsenal, we managed to get the highly rated Daniel Bentley because of our how well recieved and regarded our programme is/was.
When I spoke to Duncan when I was completing my dissertation, we were regarded as one of the top five Centres of Excellence in the country and achieving Academy status was very much on the agenda.