After England's poor showing at the 2010 World Cup Alex Horne, the Football Association's newly appointed general secretary, was tasked with looking into why the nation has failed, despite the unrivalled success of the Premier League, to reliably produce players of international quality. In January he announced 25 proposals to improve the prospects of the national side, a list designed to tally with the Premier League's own plan, which was unveiled the following month.
A key issue, both bodies agreed, was the lack of time clubs have under current regulations to work with youngsters. When the Premier League published its elite player performance plan, it compared the time its clubs typically spend with players not just with their counterparts in Spain, France and Holland – where children typically receive at least 10 hours' coaching per week, around double the English average – but with this country's elite swimmers (15 hours), musicians (pupils at the Yehudi Menuhin Music School receive about 20 hours of tuition each week) and ballet dancers (25 hours per week).
"We are only allowed to coach [schoolboys] for an hour and a half [a day]," said the Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, in May. "Barcelona can coach every hour of the day if they want and that's a great advantage they have got. We hope that, in years to come, we have more time with young players, to teach them the basics, the technical ability, and to have the confidence to take the ball all the time."
The EPPP, which is to be voted on by the 72 League clubs on Thursday, will solve that problem, at least for Manchester United. As a category one academy, the time they spend with players would no longer be restricted, and neither would the choice of players – rules preventing signing young players living more than 90 minutes' travelling time away would be lifted. So clubs would be free to set up boarding schools for the best young talent they could find, regardless of where they came from.
That this would benefit the biggest clubs – and hopefully the England manager – appears obvious. But, speaking to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee earlier this year, the Football League chairman, Greg Clarke, said he was "frightened by the unintended consequences" of the EPPP. "Of course the top clubs will have an advantage, I accept that. But I would not want to see them … abuse it by undermining the economics of the smaller clubs. I think that would be bad for English football."
Though the EPPP will affect every league club, it was drawn up by members and employees of the Premier League. Just six teams were represented in discussions, among them Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. One academy director told the Guardian this week: "I think there's good things in the document. They want to improve coaches and spend more hours with the kids, and I think all of that makes sense. But they want all the best kids to be trained with the best clubs and in the best facilities, and this is going to see the end of some smaller clubs."
The key concern is the proposed scrapping of the football tribunal. Instead a set of payments would put a value on each year a player has spent at a club's academy. This would see initial fees significantly reduced, compared with those agreed under the existing system. Further payments would be triggered should the player take part in first-team football at the buying club; the selling club would also receive a percentage of future transfer fees.
Though the Premier League's latest offer is significantly more generous than its first, Clarke's concerns are echoed by many academies. But with the Premier League withholding money from Football League clubs until they accept the plan, and having made it clear that it will not improve its offer, the Football League board has recommended clubs vote in favour. The FA has endorsed the EPPP.
"The FA has been in consistent dialogue with the leagues regarding the proposals for future elite player development," a spokesman said.
"The FA is fully supportive of the plan and any improvements to the player development system."
In order to reach category one status, a club's academy must have an annual budget of more than £2.3m and at least 18 full-time employees, as well as excellent facilities – a set-up which most clubs outside the Premier League, and several within it, would be unable to support. Academies will also be judged on previous success, using criteria decided by the Premier League.
Many clubs have complained that, according to these criteria, the most successful recent graduates from English academies are a Catalan, Cesc Fábregas, and a German, Robert Huth, who were signed from foreign clubs at the age of 16. "Chelsea haven't brought anyone through into their first team since John Terry," one academy director told The Guardian. "They wouldn't score very highly, but they do if you start saying Robert Huth is home-grown. It can't be right."
