Draft system For English football

[nnfox]

Developing youth talent has always been a difficult one.  At present, it doesn't really work.  The Premier League Academies hoover up all the best talent from their area and a tiny fraction of those players go on to become Premier League footballers.  The majority don't make it and are cast aside.  You also get top quality players who could forge a very decent career for themselves at Championship or League 1 level that end up rotting in the fringes of a Premier League first team squad, with no real prospect of playing football.

 

My solution

 

Scrap all existing academies.  Replace them with new style academies that are paid for by the FA and Premier League clubs and run by independent teams of highly skilled youth coaches.  Perhaps have 5 academy franchises that are funded by and alligned to 4 Premier League clubs each.  So, you could have, let's say Man City, Everton, Southampton and Aston Villa part funding one; Utd, Leicester, Newcastle and Palace funding another etc.  All the clubs pay the same amount into it and the frachises would set up regional talent centres all over the country so they could be accessed easily by young players.  Gone will be the days of a talented 11 year old from Plymouth hoping to play for Man City but being unable to because they live more than an hour and a half away.

 

At the end of each season, players that are turning 18 within the next season get to crunch time.  Each Premier League club should then be compelled to sign, let's say 5 players into their first team squad, so the top 20 players from their alligned franchise, and it should be written into their contract that, injury permitting, they should be guaranteed a minimum amount of Premier League minutes in the season.  And make that meaningful, like the equivelent to at least 6 full games or something.  Then the next 20 players should be offered out on loan to Championship teams or even abroad for a year for further development.  All the other players then go into a draft style system to be divided between Football League teams.

 

 

[FOXYTALK]

The aspect on american sports from the NFL i would like to see is a salary cap/budget for all teams. This would increase competition and ensure that no team can spend more than another it is and if they want to increase a players salary another would have to take a pay cut. 

[norwichfox]

The American Way is the Wrong Way for anything to do with football...

[Bobby Hundreds]

I would like to see a celeb take a peno before every kick off, a la Diana Ross in 1994. 

[ozleicester]

This is quite simply the destruction of sport and it becomes entertainment. Aussie rules has had it for 20 years and its a shambles, it basically evens out the league so that everyone gets a chance to win the league... also it means you have to do away with promotion/relegation.

 

Implementing a draft system also requires a salary cap.

 

All of the teams have a period of 5-6 years where they (should) finish somewhere between 1-5 they have had the pick of the best young players previously and they are reaching a peak

then 5-6 years of finishing between 6-15 those best players are ageing and losing impact and youve only been able to draft mid level players

5-6 years of of  finishing 15-20.... all the best players are past it, you then get the best youth and the whole thing starts again.

 

It may as well be professional wrestling

 

[ozleicester]

6 hours ago, FOXYTALK said:

The aspect on american sports from the NFL i would like to see is a salary cap/budget for all teams. This would increase competition and ensure that no team can spend more than another it is and if they want to increase a players salary another would have to take a pay cut. 

so you cant build the greatest team ever... just a team of averages

[sylofox]

17 hours ago, FIF said:

The draft system wouldn't work but I'd be all for a salary cap to be put in place.

That only works if every league in Europe agrees. If not the best players just leave. The only reason we have so many top notch players is the wages.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, sylofox said:

That only works if every league in Europe agrees. If not the best players just leave. The only reason we have so many top notch players is the wages.

I guess that depends on the level of the salary cap. But as you know I really don't GAF about the other leagues, more parity in the prem would be fun even if we didn't get the top 25 players in the world. The French league is soooo boring with the inequality and I'm guessing that other leagues must be the same.

[Footballwipe]

 as if you're naive enough to think a salary cap would work.

 

We can only limit Paul Pogba's wage to 5 million pounds a year. Adidas, the shirt manufacturer, suddenly give him an endorsement deal worth 8 million a season. What a coincidence. Maybe Paul also gets half a million to endorse a wine that, shock, is Man Utd's official wine partner.

 

You'd need an army of forensic accountants and the strictest of strict rules to enforce such a cap. There will always be ways round it. You'd have to limit loyalty bonuses, boot deals. And nevermind Europe, you'd need the world to sign onto this. Players would be scarpering to the middle east, desperate to become a designated player in an MLS team and off to wherever offers them more money than the cap can give them, and more power to them tbh.

 

I'm not saying wages aren't too high. I try and defend footballer's salaries to non-football fans because some are genuinely worth their money, both via the financial impact for a club on-field, and the merchandising/sponsorship deals that come off the pitch, too. There are too many ordinarys in this inflated market though commanding millions of pounds in wages for not much.

[LinekersApples]

4 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

I would like to see a celeb take a peno before every kick off, a la Diana Ross in 1994. 

Still better than Kermogants

[Koke]

21 hours ago, Jordan said:

I'm imagining Chelsea buying out Danny Drinkwater and taking a cap hit through 2027, and also making Winston Bogarde a Bobby Bonilla-style payment every July 1 for the next 30 years 

 

And we'll have Jamie Carragher calling Loris Karius a bonafide scrub 8 million times. 

[Koke]

I like the wage cap. Lakers are now considering whether to max out and go for a superstar after acquiring Anthony Davies, or go for 2/3 good solid players that will do their job and compliment Lebron and Davies. Imagine if Man City had that dilemma.

 

 

[woddyuk]

The football authorities cant even get the offside and handball  rules sorted, diving eliminated, or VAR working correctly ,, let alone something  like that 

[ajthefox]

5 hours ago, ozleicester said:

This is quite simply the destruction of sport and it becomes entertainment. Aussie rules has had it for 20 years and its a shambles, it basically evens out the league so that everyone gets a chance to win the league... also it means you have to do away with promotion/relegation.

 

Implementing a draft system also requires a salary cap.

 

All of the teams have a period of 5-6 years where they (should) finish somewhere between 1-5 they have had the pick of the best young players previously and they are reaching a peak

then 5-6 years of finishing between 6-15 those best players are ageing and losing impact and youve only been able to draft mid level players

5-6 years of of  finishing 15-20.... all the best players are past it, you then get the best youth and the whole thing starts again.

 

It may as well be professional wrestling

 

Well that's a massive simplification. I don't know about Aussie rules but that's really not how it works in the NFL.

 

 

[ozleicester]

2 hours ago, ajthefox said:

Well that's a massive simplification. I don't know about Aussie rules but that's really not how it works in the NFL.

 

 

Absolutely it was a simplification... but at the end of the day, it is about making the entire league more "equal" so you have a league filled with good teams... but no GREAT teams. and you can not have promotion/relegation.

 

it is about creating entertainment not about creating THE BEST

[FOXYTALK]

22 hours ago, ozleicester said:

so you cant build the greatest team ever... just a team of averages

i would point you in the direction of the new england patriots. same budget but have won multiple superbowls in recent years.

[FOXYTALK]

19 hours ago, Footballwipe said:

 as if you're naive enough to think a salary cap would work.

 

We can only limit Paul Pogba's wage to 5 million pounds a year. Adidas, the shirt manufacturer, suddenly give him an endorsement deal worth 8 million a season. What a coincidence. Maybe Paul also gets half a million to endorse a wine that, shock, is Man Utd's official wine partner.

 

You'd need an army of forensic accountants and the strictest of strict rules to enforce such a cap. There will always be ways round it. You'd have to limit loyalty bonuses, boot deals. And nevermind Europe, you'd need the world to sign onto this. Players would be scarpering to the middle east, desperate to become a designated player in an MLS team and off to wherever offers them more money than the cap can give them, and more power to them tbh.

 

I'm not saying wages aren't too high. I try and defend footballer's salaries to non-football fans because some are genuinely worth their money, both via the financial impact for a club on-field, and the merchandising/sponsorship deals that come off the pitch, too. There are too many ordinarys in this inflated market though commanding millions of pounds in wages for not much.

your wage is your wage from the club, any deals outside of this wage that don't involve the club then so be it. i'm pretty sure we have enough people looking into clubs finances as it is. If a player wants to go to another country that's their choice. most only stay for a short time then return home. Wages are incredibly high with the player holding the all the cards. In the NFL the club can decide to trade the player away or release them but at a financial impact to them. i believe the wage cap would improve the financial state of all clubs and increase competitivity. this would ensure the top 6 would have to work even harder to keep themselves their.

[ozleicester]

1 hour ago, FOXYTALK said:

i would point you in the direction of the new england patriots. same budget but have won multiple superbowls in recent years.

Fair point, the Patriots appear to be something of an anomaly, most other teams have their 3-4 years at the top and then drift back to start again.

 

Also, the draft can only be effective, when you dont have an international comp... or you are the elite comp.

 

[OntarioFox]

It certainly is a nice way of getting around the offensive hoarding of talent which big clubs seem to keep getting away with and does indeed level the playing field slightly - and offers non-pros a route into the game which is simply not possible at any level in at least the top five tiers of the English league structure nowadays.

 

The Canadian PL have tried to adopt something a little wider-ranging with their own draft which has multiple pools for College graduates, European players and so forth, but again that's relatively low risk at present because multiple tiers aren't going to be introduced until more teams join the league. And, of course, the overall standard is nowhere near the top level of the English game - I'd put it somewhere between Leagues 1 and 2 in terms of overall quality, save for a couple of early standout performers like Ryan Telfer and Emery Welshman who I think could cope in the Championship. You'd realistically need to accept a hit to the overall quality of players in at least the top three tiers to successfully implement it.

 

And all that said, even with the Draft system you can't vouch for ingrained crapness - it took the Cleveland Browns more than two years to win a game. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

1 hour ago, FOXYTALK said:

i would point you in the direction of the new england patriots. same budget but have won multiple superbowls in recent years.

 

26 minutes ago, ozleicester said:

Fair point, the Patriots appear to be something of an anomaly, most other teams have their 3-4 years at the top and then drift back to start again.

 

Also, the draft can only be effective, when you dont have an international comp... or you are the elite comp.

 

There are 2 easily explainable reasons for the Pats sustained success............Belichick & Brady.

[ajthefox]

On 20/06/2019 at 22:44, ozleicester said:

Absolutely it was a simplification... but at the end of the day, it is about making the entire league more "equal" so you have a league filled with good teams... but no GREAT teams. and you can not have promotion/relegation.

 

it is about creating entertainment not about creating THE BEST

I get your point Oz and to extent I agree but I also disagree with a lot.

 

Some teams do follow the shit to good to shit again pattern but a lot of teams have been reasonably successful for a long time, which in a more equal structure is harder to do and means you need to be better to do it. There are a few winning teams and a few typically losing teams in the NFL despite the Cap and the draft system, that is down to long term management and recruitment.

The Patriots are an extreme example who would be nowhere without Bill Belichick and Tom Brady but both of those guys were good recruitment. No-one could've known what a team they make but it's still good recruitment. And more to the point, Belichick has made the Patriots into a pretty relentless machine because of the way he influences recruitment within the team and the way they scheme year after year. I don't think their roster or even their best 5/10 players have been comparatively the best in the league in at least the last 4 Superbowls they've won but they've still won. Their continued greatness in the last 15 years can only really be rivalled by Man Utd in the 90s over here (I'm 28 so my life happens to coincide very well with the PL so forgive me my young memory/knowledge.)

 

I do realise the Patriots are the exception, not the rule, but the Steelers have been incredibly consistent for a while, and the Packers, Cowboys, Ravens, Broncos and Giants have all been generally pretty good (read they have been winning teams) for a number of years. And on the flip side the Browns were horrendous for yearssss, the Lions haven't been much good for ages and there are others who have never come close to an SB. It is more focused on entertainment but what's wrong with that? Isn't that what it is when it all comes down to it? Winning is great but you don't watch Leicester (or at least haven't historically) because you think we're actually the greatest team (or will be at some point) in the world do you?

 

Ultimately there are good and bad teams in the league, and that is evidence that the system still rewards greatness, both in terms of individuals but also of teams and systems. All it does is it makes it much, much harder to establish and maintain greatness. It does not prevent it from happening though, and that to me is an important distinction.

 

I'm surprised with you actually Oz. Given the incredible financial imbalance we all see week in week out in the premier league and English football in general (which comes back to the fact that money drives the whole thing), I thought you would be more in favour of a more equal set up, especially given your political leanings. I'm genuinely curious (not trolling), but you're often found lambasting capitalism and wealth inequality, but you would prefer that our game is for all intents and purposes an ever growing money swallowing monster. I think the principles are great, but I'm aware a draft definitely wouldn't work over here and there would clearly be issues with a salary cap, although the NFL still seems to manage it pretty well so who knows. That's my perspective anyway.

[Guest foxestalkisfullofidiots]

On 19/06/2019 at 17:45, Lambert09 said:

A hypothetical question to give us something to talk about while we wait for Rudkin to get changed out of his swimming trunks. 

 

How do we think the English game would take shape if we had a similar draft system as the American sports leagues.

 

Now I understand this is incredibly difficult to implement given that we have a football pyramid, so it would work a little differently.  We have 92 teams in the english league levels, these would be the only teams included. Non-league would have to source players outside of the draft. 

 

Academy's would be set up around the country in catchment areas, they would focus purely on talent development with large funding from the football league. These would look after the top talent up to the season a player turns 18.

 

The flaw with the NFL is that towards the end of the season teams want to loose games, to ensure a better draft pick so I think draft picks should be earnt by league standing. Top of the premier league- gets #1 pick, rather than prize money and it moves down like that. The prize money is allocated instead to the academies.     

 

Now this would be more beneficial to every tier of english football. Because you only get one pick in round one. So rather than Chelsea having the 26 best 18 year olds in the country these are now shared out among teams, so a team in the bottom division is more likely to secure a player who is capable of playing for their side. Now if teams at the top want the best youth they will have to trade for it, which would lead to a large amount of money filtering down the tree. 

 

There's probably a crazy amount of flaws to this but it would add the excitement of a draft pick and a new dimension to transfers. Imagine being in a position where rather than just selling Marhrez we also could have had their draft picks in the deal, leading to us having one of the best 18 year olds in the country for the next couple of seasons?

 

 

 

 

So would I be right in thinking that the 90th best prospect in the country goes to Macclesfield and the 93rd best player goes to Man City? 

[ozleicester]

3 hours ago, ajthefox said:

I'm surprised with you actually Oz. Given the incredible financial imbalance we all see week in week out in the premier league and English football in general (which comes back to the fact that money drives the whole thing), I thought you would be more in favour of a more equal set up, especially given your political leanings. I'm genuinely curious (not trolling), but you're often found lambasting capitalism and wealth inequality, but you would prefer that our game is for all intents and purposes an ever growing money swallowing monster. I think the principles are great,

Ahh well you see  ,

 

I believe sport is where we are right to expect and desire to see the very best, it is competition, I want to watch Usain run the 100 metres, to set world records and to be better than anyone else. The red team at my daughters school can also run the 100 metres and thats fun..., but i want to see the best..... which is completely different to life, which should not be about competing but about making fair.

The draft is about levelling the playing field.... lets level society...... and let the best compete on the field

[Lambert09]

3 hours ago, foxestalkisfullofidiots said:

So would I be right in thinking that the 90th best prospect in the country goes to Macclesfield and the 93rd best player goes to Man City? 

Correct. That was my logic. Or if they don’t want that player at that stage it gets passed down until a club does. Or they become unattached and non league can have at them. No more hording players

[Guest foxestalkisfullofidiots]

1 hour ago, Lambert09 said:

Correct. That was my logic. Or if they don’t want that player at that stage it gets passed down until a club does. Or they become unattached and non league can have at them. No more hording players

Id be raging if I was the player going to Macclesfield and im better than the player going Man City, it would stop young players being paid a fortune because you would have to have some kind of set wage which all clubs could afford which I think that is actually not that stupid.

 

Personally I've always liked the draft system but it works so well because college sport is already massive and the best thing about it is the worst team gets first pick, that's what I would want.