Will the Barclays U21 Premier League be a success?

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This footballing season as you are probably all aware of, the Premier League decided to launch its own youth development league that was designed to help academy players, British players in particular, make the step up to professional, top flight football successfully. In theory it is a great idea, but will it work in practice? What needs to be done in order for the Barclays U21 Premier League to be a success?

Firstly, in order for this to work, I really do believe that television will do it the world of good. So of course maybe TV stations such as ITV4 and BBC Three could pick it up but in order for them to be interested, they can’t be playing their matches at their training grounds. The public can get involved in such a promising competition when they’re no seats for spectators to go and watch matches and who wants to see a televised match on a training ground. There is no atmosphere for the competition playing at training grounds. They don’t have to use the senior team’s ground but maybe a local non-league’s ground with a capacity of around 5,000 will do for the early years of the competition.  So overall, televised matches and usage of proper grounds for spectators to go see matches can help the league grow.

Secondly, play the games on Friday nights. It is the perfect opportunity to do so as not only not much else sportingwise goes on, therefore there would not be much competition for the league to wrestle with (which could help television companies have faith in the league). Many people will come home from work and kick off the weekend with a night out watching the players of the future perform. It could be a nice, relaxing release from the turmoils of the working week. Playing games on a Friday night will also prevent teams from using the competition as a means of getting first team layers fit for matches, as it will not be optimal for a player to play on a Friday and then play Premier League football the next day. This will allow the league to actually work on its purpose, which is to help young players develop into Premier League-worthy players, not for already Premier League-worthy players that just need match-fitness, especially as there are an increasing amount of Premier League stars aged 21 or under.

Finally, use a simple yet exciting competition format. The format they are currently using for the league’s inaugural season is a complicated one, where there are 2 groups of 8 and group of 7, a certain amount of each group progress to the knockout stages and the knockout stage is a series of complicated scenarios that I and many others couldn’t get their head around. Keep it simple, have a division of one or maybe two groups with equal numbers of progressors and then simply end with a traditional, two legged and seeded knockout stage. Maybe even throw in a second division for promotion and relegation. The Premier League and the Football League use a simple yet effective format, so why can’t the U21 Premier League do so?

Overall, the U21 Premier League is a great, promising concept that has bags of potential, but a lot needs to be done in order for it to reach the potential it and the sport itself deserves.

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Should the Premier League implement new financial and player selection regulations?

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The Premier League is seen as one of the most exciting sports leagues in the world, its popularity spanning the whole globe. It is arguably the best football league in the world but did the English top flight take a turn for the worse when it split from the Football League to create its own independent league?

Back in 1992, the Football League First Division decided to split from the Football League and create the Premier League in order to take advantage of lucrative television deals and they haven’t looked back. The league’s income grew enormously to a point where today many of the league’s top teams can lure foreign players to England with the insane wages they can offer as a result of the League’s growth. However, as the Premier League has developed a strong financial aspect to its model, it has became increasingly blatant that the teams with the most financial assets do the best. For example, a few years ago Manchester City were a club battling relegation but as soon as the rich UAE consortium took over, they rapidly got better by signing players they would not have acquired pre-UAE-consortium days and it only took until last season for Manchester City to win their first league title in over 40 years. The runners up of last year’s Premier League just so happens to be Manchester United, the most valuable sports team in the team. Coincedence? I think not. Teams such as Aston Villa and Swansea cannot compete with the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United simply as they have not got the financial assets that the Manchester clubs have.

The spending power of the top English clubs is also hindering the development of young English talent, it is no coincedence that the England national team has been suffering a period of complacency whilst the Spanish national team is getting stronger and stronger. Why is this? Simply because the top teams in Spain, e.g. Barcelona and Real Madrid, consist of predominantly Spanish players, they are developing the local talent coming through the ranks and helping them cross the bridge from academy football to professional football. As a result of the rich, title challenging English clubs always trying to stay ahead of their rivals, they look for already proven talent. This proven talent is often from abroad and since they have the money to buy proven talent, they will do so, rather than focusing on developing their own, homegrown players. This has meant that English talent has stagnated, as many of them aren’t properly guided to take the next step from academy football to top flight football. The Premier League has attempted to prevent this by introducing 25 man squads, of which 8 must be ‘homegrown’ (players that have been trained in England or Wales from the age of 15 to 21 for a minimum of 3 years). However, it has made little difference, especially as homegrown players don’t even have to be English, as long as they meet the rule explained above, they are considered homegrown.

So what can the Premier League to address these problems. Place your opinions in the comments below and soon I’ll write my answer to these problems as well as including some of your opinions. Please also feel free to comment on any ways I can improve my blog and please spread the word of this blog, tell your friends!