The Scottish FA has warned Scotland’s senior clubs that a youth development crisis is coming down the tracks unless they give homegrown talent a chance to play
At a meeting in St Andrews, the nation’s 42 senior clubs were told that a failure to give young players first-team minutes is collectively costing them £40million a year.
In a quest to address the situation, chairmen and Chief Executives were asked to vote on a package of measures aimed at increasing the game time for players aged 21 from next season.
The governing body will commit £1million a year to incentivise clubs across the leagues to play academy prospects in the first team.
Two under-21s will now need to start all Scottish Cup matches, with one player on the pitch at all times.
Two under-21 Scots will also start all Premier Sports Cup matches, again with one player on the pitch at all times.
In the SPFL Premiership clubs will be asked to field under-21 players for an average of 60 minutes per game across the season.
Club Brugge Head of Recruitment Guilian Preud’homme gave a presentation outlining the financial incentives of fielding and developing academy players.
London based data consultancy Twenty First Group also laid bare the financial loss to teams of failing to utilise their youth academy graduates. Data shows that Turkey the only European nation to offer fewer minutes to under-21 players in their top flight than Scotland.
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Reluctant to describe the situation as a crisis for the national game SFA Chief Football Officer Craig Mullholland warned that, unless the damning figures are tackled, it could become more difficult for Scotland’s national team to reach major tournaments in future.
“If we don't address this now, we are going to go back to a bit where we could be risking qualifying for tournaments and never making it to the group stages,” said Mulholland. “I think we need to be.
“I get frustrated when I look at Club Brugge today because their presentation is so exciting. I get frustrated when I look at the Twenty First Group presentation because we should be one of those other nations that can go and achieve that.
“Maybe crisis is just too strong a word, but what I am saying is we need to act now, otherwise we could end up finding ourselves in a crisis at some point in the future.”
While some clubs expressed the view that the measures did not go far enough a consultation process will see the SFA hierarchy tour clubs speaking to decision makers individually in the coming weeks.
The Scottish Cup rule will be voted on at an SFA General Meeting in October while clubs will have a show of hands on the other proposals at the SPFL AGM in November.
