Boys who want to be footballers have a difficult dream to achieve. Of the 1.5 million boys who play organised youth football at any given time in England, only around 180 will be signed professionally by a Premier League club.
This dream can feel within a boy’s grasp, though, when he is signed to a professional football club’s academy. Academies run from the under-nine age group all the way up until the under-23s. From around the age of 12, players can be brought out of school to attend training. At 16, players are offered a two-year scholarship at their club and become full-time.
