Representatives of the 72 Football League clubs are to vote on Thursday morning on a proposed revolution to the player academy system that would make it easier and cheaper for Premier League clubs to recruit young talent from lesser teams.
The proposed new elite player performance plan (EPPP) would replace the current tribunal system which asks each club to provide and justify their valuation of the player involved before deciding on a fee they consider fair.
Under the compensation formula the selling club would simply receive a set figure for each year the player has spent in their academy. For example, when Everton signed the 16-year-old defender Luke Garbutt from Leeds United in 2009 a tribunal ordered them to pay an initial £600,000; under the new system this would have been capped at a maximum of £131,000.
At the same time top clubs will be exempted from the current rules preventing them from signing under-16s who live more than 90 minutes' travelling distance away (or an hour for under-12s), allowing them to scout and sign players from anywhere in the country.
"If a club wants a player that badly then they pay what he's worth, and he goes," the director of a leading Football League academy told the Guardian. "But with the derisory compensation they're proposing I'm not sure the clubs will want all the players they're getting. They may just be casting the net."
The advantage of the plan would be to increase massively the amount of time top clubs spend with their young players, with enormous possible benefits for the players involved, the clubs holding their registrations and, potentially, for England's national team.
Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, calls the EPPP "a supertanker that's very difficult to stop now", and his organisation has done its best to ensure this, incentivising those present to vote in favour by withholding part of its annual solidarity payment to the Football League – the £5.4m ring-fenced for youth development – since the summer and until the motion is passed.
Should no agreement be reached the maximum grant received by Football League clubs this season will be capped at £120,000 – a fraction of what many will have budgeted for. By contrast, should the proposals be ratified each of the 72 clubs can expect more generous grants from the start of next season.
The Premier League clubs approved the plans in June. The Football League has written to the chairmen of all its clubs to say that "having balanced the pros and cons of the offer the league's board has unanimously agreed to recommend these proposals to member clubs", and the feeling within the game is that most will concur. But many of those who work in player development are worried about the effect the plan is likely to have.
"Football League clubs have met on a regular basis to discuss it," the director of one highly regarded academy said. "Initially there wasn't enough information, now I just think there's a feeling of unrest, that this isn't good. But it's beyond our control now, it's almost been passed."
