Premier League’s search for young talent has left the market overheated and failing

Rio Ngumoha has broken into the Liverpool first team at 17 after moving from Chelsea, but plenty of other teenagers struggle. Photograph: Visionhaus/Getty Images

The discussion during a meeting of Premier League sporting directors this year turned to academies and the amount of money spent on homegrown teenagers. The market for players as young as 14 has turned wild, according to industry figures.

“Some wages are astronomical,” one agent says. A sporting director at a top-flight club struggling to keep their best youngsters away from the richest teams in England says: “It’s a nightmare. We have to offer 14-year-olds scholarship contracts just to protect ourselves.”