Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal Volume 2 | Page 34

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2018, Vol. 2
As the governing body for football in England, The
FA is responsible for formulating and implementing
current developmental strategies for coach
education and the national training programme.
Using a multidisciplinary approach, The FA has
adopted the ‘Four Corner Model’ (FCM) into its
syllabus, which considers the four segments of
technical/tactical, physical, psychological and
social factors. This approach to talent development
facilitates a player-centred approach by identifying
specific characteristics that relate to each of the
four segments, allowing the coach or practitioner
to identify certain weaknesses which create
individual learning objectives to assist player
development. It outlines a range of factors that may
need to be addressed if a young player is to reach
their potential. This simplistic framework has the
appropriate theoretical context and simplicity for
both clubs and coaches to apply to their practical
environments. Although isolated age-specific
investigation is not uncommon, combined research
considering the whole development pathway within
each of the four corners is limited.
The Premier League’s EPPP arguably has had
a far more influential role of the application,
investment, construction and assessment of the
academy structure in England. The EPPP aims to
improve youth football development in England
by proposing to modernise talent identification
and recruitment including research in such areas
as physiological parameters, relative age effects,
psychological profiling, motivation, decision making,
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technical ability, and attainment rate. The six initial
fundamental principles of the EPPP included: 1)
increasing the number and quality of
home-grown players 2) create more time for players
to be coached 3) improve coaching provision 4)
implement a system of effective measurement
and quality assurance 5) positively influence
strategic investment 6) seek significant gains in
every aspect of player development. They aimed
to do this through four main capacities: coaching,
classification, compensation and education. As
part of the EPPP, academies are reviewed every
three years and categorised between 1 and 4,
with categorisation the result of an independent
audit. It is claimed that the implementation of the
EPPP has reformed academies multidisciplinary
approach through the development of their training
programme and a holistic coaching approach.
Notable rule changes from the previous system is
the abolition of the 90-minute rule, where clubs
could only sign players aged under-18 if they lived
within 90 minutes travel of the training facility, and
the implementation of fixed tariff for transfers of
players under-18, which replaces the independent
tribunal compensation system. For example, players
aged 9 to 11 years have a fixed fee of £3,000 per
year spent at an academy, and £12,500 to £40,000
per year spent at an academy (depending on
category) for players aged 12 to 16, with additional
fees for appearances in the club’s first team. As a
result of increased revenue for the Premier League
clubs, there is a rise in the transfer fees paid for
players. Due to the increasing expenditure on
players, larger clubs have begun sourcing talented
players at a young age by buying them from fellow
academies. By doing so, it may be suggested the
top clubs will eventually have the best youth
players, with future hope of them becoming skilled
enough to help their team reach their optimal goals
of trophies, European qualification, or sustaining
higher league status. Therefore, professional youth
development systems spend years and large sums
of money attempting to develop players, or in
many cases, to gain financial profit from future
transfer fees.
Thus, developing a player capable of playing in the
Premier League can be profitable for Category 3
academies or lower league football clubs, by selling
them to Category 1 and 2 academies or Premier
League and Championship clubs respectively.
Consequently, this not only sustains the smaller
club’s youth academy, but in many cases the entire
football club. Furthermore, the larger clubs benefit
from having the best youth players in the country
which, if they become top professionals, have been
bought at a cut down price. Additionally, producing
young players that eventually make a professional
club’s first team can escalate the price, particularly
due to the Bosman Ruling. As a result, the LWNM