Newcastle United are stepping up their search for the 'next generation of talent' as the Magpies recruit academy scouts across the country to potentially help save millions in the long run.
Newcastle are bringing in part-time youth talent spotters in London, the South West, East Anglia, the Midlands, the North West and Yorkshire. According to the job description, these 'experienced and innovative regional scouts' will be responsible for finding the 'next generation of talent' in England.
Unearthing the best players coming through is all the more important for Newcastle given how difficult it now is to recruit youngsters from abroad. Brexit has prevented English clubs from being able to work with foreign imports until they are 18 and, even then, these prospects still need to qualify for a Governing Body Endorsement (GBE).
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Closer to home, Newcastle currently have a local recruitment team who go out and watch grassroots games and scout youngsters within an hour or hour-and-a-half radius depending on what age group they are in. The club are able to sign players aged between seven and 11 within an hour of the training ground and those aged 12 and older within a 90-minute radius.
Under-14 players, though, can be recruited from across the country and this appears to be one area Newcastle will target with these new appointments as head of youth recruitment Paul Midgley recently touched on.
"At the end of the under-14 year, you can recruit nationally, which is going to be a brand new thing for the club," he told the match day programme earlier this month. "At the moment, we are building a national scouting team to go and watch games, identifying high talent and high potential players across the nation with a view to bringing them into our academy system to improve the standard of play and increase the level of individuals within the academy system across the age groups."
It will fall to these talent spotters to identify and assess 'high quality players' from outside the club’s local catchment area. They will develop intel of games, players, competitions and fixtures to inform the lead scouts and deliver 'effective reports' on players to aid decision making as to whether to sign, monitor or disregard a potential target.
It is the latest step in Newcastle's youth recruitment revamp as the Magpies bid to bring through more of their own players in the years to come to help save money on transfer fees and comply with Financial Fair Play regulations. Midgeley joined from Man City as head of youth recruitment and Paul McLaren will follow from the Etihad as head of national youth scouting once he has served his period of gardening leave. Delroy Ebanks is on his way from West Ham as a lead academy scout while Eddie Black has started in the same role after joining from Arsenal.
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