From BBC Sport. There
is some Fermi estimation here alongside the usual skills.
Academy football: Zac Brunt case
There are an estimated 3,000 children aged between nine and 16 in
Premier League academies, with thousands more throughout the Football League.
"Unless you're the next [Cristiano] Ronaldo, clubs don't want to
pay £120,000 for a 15-year-old." Aged
15, Zac Brunt has been part of academies at Aston Villa, Manchester City,
Atletico Madrid, and most recently Derby.
He spent the past two years with the Championship club's elite academy
on what is commonly known as an Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) - designed
to bring the best young players, the best coaches and the best environments
together at an early age.
"I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere at Derby," Brunt told
the BBC. "Other clubs are interested but the fee is so big. For two years
work, have I cost Derby County £120,000? Probably not. "I think this could be the end of my
career. I can't go anywhere else apart from semi-professional - the highest
level I can go - unless a professional team buys me out of this clause."
The Premier League and the English Football League (EFL) said the
"vast majority" of young players moving between academies have
compensation waived.
Why so much money?
Compensation formula for academy players when
joining another club
|
||
Age group of player
|
Category of club academy leaving
|
Applicable annual fixed fee - new club to pay
|
U9 to U11
|
All Categories
|
£3,000
|
U12 to U16
|
Category 1
|
£40,000
|
U12 to U16
|
Category 2
|
£25,000
|
U12 to U16
|
Category 3
|
£12,500
|
The £120,000 compensation fee that any other academy must pay Derby to
sign Brunt is worked out from his three-year registration at their category one
academy (£40,000 + £40,000 + £40,000).
Brunt says he understands the need for a rule to protect clubs'
investments, but added: "I know a few boys who have been absolutely ruined
by this rule and they had to stop playing football and go and play non-league
or something like that because they just can't get in anywhere.
Brunt's dad Glen says his son has been for trials with other top clubs,
but the compensation fee is putting them off - comparing it to the £7,000 Derby
paid Manchester City to sign the youngster themselves.
So is this an unusual case?
The Premier League and the EFL say so.
For example, from about 3,000 Premier
League academy players last season, 210 left a club
early and, of those, 182 (##%) had
compensation rights waived. That percentage has remained above 80% for the past
three years.
Questions:
- What inconsistencies are there in the article?
- How many children are there in each age group in each club in the premier league?
- If Derby get £120,000 what will their percentage profit be?
- What percentage of players leave a club early?
- How many players from each age group leave each team early each year on average?
- How many of these players will play premier league football?
Answers:
- He has been at Derby for two years, but will apparently cost other clubs the equivalent of three years of payments (3 x £40,000). Why did Derby pay £7000 for the player? Where does that fit into the structure?
- Slightly strangely, “Under 9s” means players who are under 9 years old at the start of the season. By the end of the season it might be the case that all the players are actually 9 years old. The phrase at the start of the article: “there are 3000 players aged between 9 and 16” might refer to 7 year groups or to 8. There are 20 clubs in the premier league. This gives about 20 players in each year group at each club (3000 / (20 x 7.5) ).
- 120,000 / 7000 = 17.14 Subtract 1 to leave the profit and then express as a percentage: 1614%
- 210 / 3000 = 7%. [Also: the hashed out figure is 87%.]
- 210 leave 20 clubs, which is 10.5 from each club. Presumably we shouldn’t include the oldest year group (“leave the clubs early”), so divide this by 6 or 7. It’s just under 2 per year group at each club.
- This is interesting (and hard!). If a club has a senior playing staff of about 30, aged between 18 and 33 then about two of them will retire each year. Some of the other players will move abroad or to lower-league teams, but some will be replaced with players from abroad or from lower leagues. Maybe 2 per year from the youth team making it through to each premier league squad is reasonable. So that’s about 10% of those who are in the top year group.
