EPPP - If it ain't broke don't break it!

 

 

Back in July 2012, the Premier League launched EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) a structured plan to supposedly raise standards in youth development. The six fundamental principles that were highlighted as key to the success of the EPPP were:

 

- Increase the number and quality of home grown players gaining professional contracts in the clubs and playing first team football at the highest level

 

- Create more time for players to play and be coached

 

- Improve coaching provision

 

- Implement a system of effective measurement and quality assurance

 

- Positively influence strategic investment into the Academy System demonstrating value for money

 

- Seek to implement significant gains in every aspect of player development

 

The previous system for determining compensation for players was reviewed with the Football League, along with the restrictions on player recruitment. This now gives clubs with higher graded academies free reign on other clubs' young talent and compensation schemes with much reduced, fixed fees replaced tribunals; meaning that those clubs losing players were likely to be much worse off.

 

In order to force through the proposals the Premier league forcibly coerced the football league clubs down a route many didn't want to pursue, under the threat of withdrawal of some of their TV money. Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parrish described it as:

 

"A brazen attempt by the Premier League's wealthy elite to cherry pick the best youngsters from the Football League clubs."

 

Yet Premier League clubs are now starting to see EPPP as having a potentially detrimental impact on their clubs as well. Jeremy Peace chairman of West Bromwich Albion said recently;

 

“The way it is for us in the short term isn’t working. And I’m not convinced it’ll work medium term. The way it’s structured these lads are going to go to the big clubs - that’s the seduction. Why are we spending £2.5 million (on infrastructure improvements and a similar amount each year in running costs) to be another club’s academy?" 

 

"We’ve invested in the infrastructure and we’ll see what happens over the next year. But from what we’re seeing so far it’s very disappointing".

 

“We’ve brought in a whole load of staff, all these facilities and then a club can come along with £200k and say ‘here you go, thank you very much".

 

Free movement amongst Category 1 clubs with a derisory compensation scheme, progressively getting worse the lower down the grading scale. Where is the benefit, for anyone outside the powerful ten or so teams, free of the threat of relegation, the powerhouses of the Premier League?

 

Some clubs have given up on their academies all together - Wycombe and Yeovil Town being two of the higher profile examples. Others have weighed up a decision with a significant number of pros and cons. A decision regarding which category to apply for was not a simple task.

 

Part of the process was to re-categorise Academies from one to four; one being the highest standard. Now, one year on, clubs have found out the results of the independent audit programme which saw Double Pass, a Belgian company, assess all academies against 10 Key Performance Indicators that assessed how each club scored against the criteria for their chosen grade. Pleasingly United's Academy has officially been categorised by the Professional Game Board (PGB) as a Category Two Academy under the new youth development system. A positive news story on the face of it.

 

Despite the success of the Blades' academy down the years the club admitted that it "had some work to do" to improve and meet the necessary criteria of a Category Two Academy. This involved investing heavily in coaching staff across all age groups.

 

The benefits of this investment are clear; guaranteeing a prestigious fixtures programme against the best teams in the area, added financial protection against losing players to predatory clubs and a seal of approval from an independent organisation that says the club delivers a high quality programme. That could be the key to attracting the right players in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

 

But this is where the EPPP plan actually contradicts what it is trying to achieve. Our academy has not been ranked outside the top 20 in the last 12 years; a stand out achievement for a club that has only had one season in the Premier League in that time.  Academy manager Nick Cox also pointed out:

 

"The auditors gave us special praise for our player productivity over the years. The Premier League's scoring system sees us ranked as the eighth best producer of talent in the last three years."

 

Consistently in the Top 20 academies, eighth best producer of talent, it is hardly broke, so why fix it? Or in this case, break it. With the success that United has had, investing heavily in youth development, producing two full England internationals and numerous age group internationals in that time, it seems a ridiculous scenario that they have chosen not to apply for Category 1 status. Whilst I don't disagree with the need to improve, surely that should be as much about raising standards of the many academies not the few.

 

Cox said that:

 

"Category One does not fit with the strategy of the club. Chasing Category One status would have been to massage our own ego rather than a common sense decision……Many of the benefits of a higher category do not fit with what we are trying to achieve, for example it would have allowed us to scout nationally from the age of 12 when what we really want is for our Academy to be developers of the best local players as a priority."

 

It is easy to read between the lines and see a financial cost as one of the major factors. A £2.3m annual budget is a considerable amount for a club outside of the Premier League without a benefactor, TV money/parachute payments and on annual turnover of less than £10m.

 

Category 1 status is about throwing money and resources at a perceived problem and we are all aware of examples where that has not worked well in football. Category 1 is not about player development or playing first team football at the highest level, it is certainly not about value for money. It is about creating a barrier to entry, for those clubs outside of the elite. Regardless of the initiative, investment and credibility previously demonstrated in player development, no cash and you are not in.

 

Club representatives have spoken of the need to recruit, develop and nurture the best young talent in the region, with the ultimate aim of continuing to graduate our youngsters into our first-team squad at Bramall Lane in the years ahead. In reality we all know that will subsequently mean player sales, to allow further investment in young talent. That is, unless a Premier league return can be achieved.

 

Our reputation for player development will hold the club in good stead and the salutary tale of Jordan Slew, whose career has stalled after leaving United after making just 11 first team appearances, may encourage a longer term commitment from academy graduates. Staying at Bramall Lane has had clear longer term benefits for Matt Lowton.

 

When, not if, player such as George Long and Harry Maguire move on they will have tremendous playing experience under their belts, that may not have been gained with premature moves to a higher level. Behind them their fellow graduates, such as Elliott Whitehouse and Callum McFadzean, will be forging similar careers and the next generation will be establishing themselves - see (England U17 goalkeeper) George Willis and (Italy Under 18 striker - from Chesterfield) Diego De Girolamo amongst others.

 

Another key factor could be the capture of the aforementioned Cox, who oversaw the graduation to first team football of 52 players in 12 years at Watford. He clearly has a keen eye. His arrival at Bramall Lane was greeted with congratulatory tweets from Watford fans I know, saying what a great capture he will be. Let's hope so.

 

United might survive the EPPP era better than most. Credit for that must go to Kevin McCabe who invested heavily in tremendous facilities at Shirecliffe at a time when few other clubs were following suit. This has given United a significant base to launch the careers of several promising starlets over the last few years. Encouraging the next batch to see Bramall Lane as a place to develop and grow as a player will be the key. Promotion to the Championship will also help.

 

But let's not pretend EPPP that this is helping arrest the slide of age group national teams in international competition so clearly demonstrated this summer. Let's not pretend that this is to benefit the national team - since when do the Premier League clubs care about that? This is about clubs stockpiling players that will no doubt end up back at their original clubs on loan, or on the scrapheap at 19 and 20; when chances are so few and far between and their development is stunted through a lack of first team football.

 

In some ways that may work in United's favour and also that of other Championship and League One clubs. If that happens, the best will still move to Premier League clubs and hopefully move on to international recognition. The wiser members of the remaining group will maybe resist the lure of sitting in the stands and develop their careers in surroundings and with coaches who have developed so many talented players to date.

The Blades "Creweprint"

 

 

Tuesday night saw the return of a fixture that I have not had the pleasure of watching for some time. Crewe Alexandra visited Bramall Lane; a match where you are guaranteed to watch at least one side play football and at times in the past that has been The Railwaymen. Thankfully, both teams on Tuesday night played "the right way" and the 3-3 draw that ensued will have been fine fare for the neutral, if a little frustrating for the fans of both sides as leads were thrown away and contentious refereeing decisions played a part in the eventual outcome.

 

It is fair to say that Crewe Alexandra are the best side I have seen so far at Bramall Lane this season, playing with a swift incisiveness across the pitch and a movement off the ball that has it's foundations in stability, a strong academy system and a belief in a certain way of playing that has been actively pursued over the last 30 years. They moved the ball around the pitch with a crispness and pace that to me was clearly sharper than the Blades attractive, but more pedestrian, play.

 

On Tuesday night, the average age of the Crewe side was 23. A look through the programme reveals an average squad age of 21.5 with 15 of the 27 players having come through the club's youth system. The importance in the academy pipeline emphasised by the continued investment in the required infrastructure, facilities and coaches required under the new academy infrastructures put in place by the Elite Player Performance Plan. 

 

Crewe have successfully achieved Category 2 Academy status, a rare achievement compared with other clubs of similar size and stature. It puts them on a similar footing to many Championship and some Premier League clubs and it is to their great credit that they see the continuation of youth development as so important, especially against the backdrop of the deserved controversy that the EPPP has generated. Chairman John Bowler told the Crewe Chronicle;

 

"That's the kind of standing we feel we deserve and we have a right to be in that group. We want to be because we want to be associated with those types of clubs". Confident that Crewe will attract and in the short term retain good young players who recognise the club's ability to successfully develop their career."

 

The sale of players has always been important to Alexandra; funding both squad strengthening, underpinning the running of the club and also the ongoing success of the youth production line. That production line was tested again this summer when, after the success of promotion at Wembley, the club sold two of its latest young starlets in Nick Powell and Ashley Westwood to Manchester United and Aston Villa respectively. In that context, the start they have made to this season, establishing themselves mid-table in League One, is all the more impressive.

 

It ought to be noted that the club's plan is not without its ups and downs. In recent seasons the club has spent 3 seasons in League Two, following a spell of 3 years in League One and a prolonged spell in the Championship.

 

Crewe have supplemented their side with loan players and you can see that they have made an impact, slotting into the side. In fact two of the impressive front three on Tuesday; Lauri Dalla Valle and Chuks Aneke, have arrived from Fulham and Arsenal respectively. The other member of that trio Matthias Pogba was signed from Blue Square Premier club Wrexham and is a fine example of the quality that can be picked up in the lower divisions of English football and the upper echelons of the pyramid.

 

Where Crewe suffer, and this probably explains their current mid-table position, is that they have a soft underbelly. A team, lacking experienced leaders on the pitch can be defensively susceptible and no amount of hard work and a good team ethic is going to prevent that. They are also prone to making mistakes, something acknowledged by manager Steve Davis.

 

Development from within has been on the Blades agenda for the last couple of years and it shows. The Blades starting eleven on Tuesday had an average age of 24, just a year more than Crewe. The challenge for Jamie Hoyland and the further new recruits to the academy coaching team is to maintain the good work put in place by Ron Reid and John Pemberton; a task which we shouldn't under-estimate the size of in the current climate. Despite United's recent Youth Cup and Milk Cup success, the academy has only been given provisional Category 2 status, pending an ISO Audit in the new year. The arrival of Hoyland and others all part of the investment in the quality and quantity of coaching required by the EPPP rules.  

 

Where United have a distinct advantage is in the relative size of the clubs. The difference in crowds between clubs in this division is immense. United's average last season delivered Turnover of some £4.5m in gate receipts. That in turn allows us to sign experienced players, particularly down the spine of the team. That is not to say United are not without an emphasis on young talent. Development from within has been on the Blades agenda for the last couple of years and it shows. The Blades starting eleven on Tuesday had an average age of 24, just a year more than Crewe.

 

Where I think United have struggled is integrating loan players, with an understandable reluctance to utilise the loan market unless absolutely necessary, having had our fingers burned during the Championship relegation season. When we have, the success stories are rare.

 

United are at a crucial time in their recent history. Looking at the accounts, it is clear that promotion is vital this season. Kevin McCabe's stated aim of a financially self-sufficient club clearly is dependent upon Championship football. Whilst achieving the salary cap of 65% helps move the club in the right direction, the other costs of running a club and stadium the size of Bramall Lane should not be under-estimated. Unpicking the football club results from the plc accounts, with all that has gone on in recent years is not that easy, but what you can see is a club that lost £13m (before tax) on its football operations last season.

 

On top of this, we can also see that taking the step up to the Championship isn't straight forward. Even the self-proclaimed biggest clubs outside of the Premier League have struggled to push on to the upper echelons of the Championship. For others, maintaining their recent success after a prolonged unbeaten run is proving troublesome, their difficulties coming after signing several players of clear Championship ability to bolster a successful League 1 squad.

 

Therein lays a problem. Whilst United will have a better ability to build an improved squad than most other challengers for promotion, the likelihood is that we will still see a few lean seasons financially in the Championship. Whilst parachute payments make the gap between top and bottom even wider, the club will still be bridging a gap between loss making and break-even. Whilst there will be increased income as a result of being in the Championship, from TV (the fall in TV income in the last 12 months was £3.5m), gate receipts and commercial enterprise; the emphasis on youth development, stability and a way of playing that permeates all levels of the club structure is vital.

 

This might not bring the immediate success Unitedites crave and we might have to suffer some ups and downs as Crewe have, hopefully not with the movement between divisions! I can see this is the only way to long term stability, and the structure to deliver a return to the top flight. I am no McCabe apologist, as those who regularly read this blog will know, but in his Chairman's Statement in the accounts he refers to the transition, through the recruitment of young players, to comply with the Salary Cost Management Protocol. In the Business Review, Scott McCabe talks of, "the professional squad gradually reducing in size while rationalizing it to support a more fluid progression for home-grown players from the Club's Academy and for young acquisitions from the transfer market."

 

Ordinarily, this financial straightening would have started last season, but for players still being under expensive contracts that other clubs were unwilling to take on. Things were that bad, we have had to pay players to leave this summer and we have accepted transfer fees for others with a value and staged payments that fans have looked on with incredulity. In effect we are a year behind in this adjustment and we might have found that the club would have still undergone a serious level of change even if we had achieved promotion last season.    

 

Sheffield United going forward are going to have to be a bit like Crewe. To the more arrogant elements of our support, that might seem like heresy. I can think of several clubs where the wider support would dismiss such talk as" tinpot" thinking. It does sit contrary to the want it all, want it now, want it yesterday mind-set of modern society and the money-fuelled upper echelons of the game.

 

Some might say, well that just means we develop great young players and sell them as we always do.  That might well be the case and at times, in the past, given the relative position of the club at the time, I have been suitably aggrieved at this. However, we need to look at where we are now, where football is now. Youth development and the profit on the sale of those players is going to be an important source of income for the club; up until and probably even after we make it back to the Premier League. In many ways, it will be as important as it is to a club the size of Crewe, but for different reasons.

 

A long term strategy, with stability, an emphasis on youth and a core culture to the club and its coaching might not bear fruit tomorrow, but it will reap a rich harvest for clubs like United and Crewe in the future. We might just have to sit out a failed crop or two in the short term.

EPPP - No Profit for Young Men

So on Friday another young and talented Blade left the club and was thus the cue for much gnashing of teeth, shaking of heads and barely hidden frustration at how it has happened again.

 
Ask any Blades fan and they will tell you that Matt Lowton is the latest example of the club selling off its prized asses, going way back to the late 60's and Mick Jones leaving for Leeds. A text from my Dad on Friday night only just fell short of listing them all but included the line;

"We are just an academy supply line for other clubs, it pisses me off!" 

Yet the modern day reality is that this situation will only get worse and the rewards from doing it will only diminish.

 

Again, whenever these sales occur, phrases like "lack of ambition" are bandied around and the board and Chairman are targeted for some stick. There is a belief that we are the only club operating in this way, yet if clubs such as Arsenal cannot hold on to their best players, what chance a League One club? Because, regardless of size, crowds, history, that is what we are. Yes, Tottenham held on to Luka Modric when everything pointed to him leaving for Chelsea or elsewhere, but a strong financial position and the possibility of success and trophies helps.  

 

And when a Premier League team come a knocking you either accept a price or keep an unhappy player. We all know the one at work, who is desperate to leave but for whatever reason can't. Whinging, whining, dragging everyone else down. Should we expect it to be any different at a football club? Especially when the aforememtioned employee was a key to the club's recent relative success and reportedly expressed a desire to play at a higher level.

Whilst there are clear financial benefits to the club from selling Lowton, the move doesn't massively help with the most pressing financial issue (assuming we are not facing cash flow issues) and that is the wage cap we are struggling to meet. I cannot believe that Lowton, who only broke into the team 18 months ago, is a high earner and so his saving is going to be small beer given the savings required. It is not as if the income from the sale hits top line turnover. Instead it is recognised as a profit on player registrations below operating profit, or in our case operating loss. £12.9m of loss in the 12 months to 2011 in case you were wondering. 

So what it does give is help in managing the books. Too few clubs operate in a sustainable manner and despite pledges from Kevin McCabe that this is his aim for United, I think he is finding it a much longer road than he anticipated. Trevor Birch, a man brought in on the equivalent of a high League One player's salary to manage this transition, lasted 18 months and departed with a £0.5m pay off for achieving very little. Certainly another season of third tier football will not accelerate that transition

Other sales are bound to follow. There is a need to reduce the wage bill and senior players may be offered for low fees to try and negate the deterrent that their wages generate. That will help with the salary cap. The younger players offer little savings in wages but generate pure profit and help plug the gap between costs and income. But how much longer can clubs guarantee that the gap will be plugged in this way?

Will the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) mean that the next generation of players such as Kyle Naughton, Kyle Walker, Jordan Slew and Lowton are gone before they make their first team debuts? Before they can make their names? Before they can generate anything between £10-£15m of transfer fees? The imposition of EPPP on the Football League, was an act of sporting coercion and blackmail that only the current machinations of the SFA and SPL can possibly emulate or outdo.

 

The blackmail arising from the Premier League threat to withold the £5m that it is due to pay the clubs of the Football League to help cover the cost of funding youth development until it voted in favour of the decision. This now remains in place for four years, but the ultimate pricepaid in return is much more.

The geographical limitations which prevented clubs from signing players from a radius greater than ninety minutes’ journey from their own ground are removed; creating a “free” market in which clubs take players on from anywhere. Alongside this the amount of money that they will have to pay in compensation has been drastically cut and is now determined by a fixed tariff card.

 

Compensation  levels are set dependent on how long the player has been at the selling club. For example, the fee is fixed at £3,000-per-year for a player's development from nine to 11-years-old. The fee from 12 to 16 is dependent on a club's academy status and range from £12,500 to £40,000.

Academies apply for a status based on criteria including financial investment in the academy. The status levels are from 1 to 4, with 1 being the highest. The academies are then audited by an independent body who will set the status for each club. The financial impact both in terms of running costs and funding is not insubstantial, the funding gap is £300,000 between Category One and  Category Two status and £270,000 between  Category Two and Category Three.

 

You would assume given the infrastructure and success of the academy at Shirecliffe that United have a high ranking status. Yet the reality is that it will probably be just Premier League clubs and a handful of Championship clubs that will go for Level 1. I assume United will be one of few teams outside of the Championship to apply for Level 2 status. It would be interesting to know what United applied for, as far as I can see it is something the club has never made public. Neither has the club made public how they voted on accepting EPPP, but with such a well developed, well-run and successful academy I can only hope that we took a principled stand, however futile. 

So what does this all mean for a club like United? Well, it is more than likely that clubs will scout younger players much more aggressively than previously. The fees for acquiring players in their mid-teens will be rarely above £100,000 and thus represent a minor gamble for clubs. The fear has to be that this leads to stockpiling - why not recruit 10 or 15 and see who make the grade and it will cost less up front than a Tom Taiwo or a John Bostock have cost Chelsea and Spurs in the past.

The Premier League argues the add-on amounts the selling club will receive if the player is a success at his new club will ensure it is a fair system. That is a fair point, for every Kyle Walker at United there has been a Lee Morris (£4m to Derby County) or a Wayne Quinn. Granted these moved later in their careers when established in the first team, however they highlight the gamble in investing heavily in young talent.

The danger is, with a focus on the elite,  how many players will actually trigger the add-on payments? A player is picked up for peanuts, doesn't make the breakthrough and left for the smaller clubs to pick back up, probably having not developed as well as they might have in the care of their original club. So yes they may find their way back to United and other non-Premier League clubs, but are "damaged goods" rather than how they might have develop

 

With the pick of the next generation of Blades stars likely to be plucked from Shirecliffe, long before they reach the Bramall Lane turf, and with little financial benefit to the club, it will be interesting to see how United manage the academy and their player relationships going forward. It will be as much about focusing on pastoral care for the player and closer communication and relationships with families and agents as purefootball development. Assuring them that the player's best interests are served staying with United.

The belief that "United always sell their best young players" is  something that will probably never go away as I can only see it becoming a more frequent occurrence but with much smaller rewards from doing it. For now, when the opportunity arises, with the club in the financial position it is in and in the league it is in, I can only see them selling. The sale may be unpalatable, the valuation on the player may be unpalatable, but it will be one of the few opportunities a smaller club has to realise profit on a player sale. This profit is a financial boost that makes a significant difference to both a club's solvency and profitability, soon that income stream will become a trickle.
 

It would be fascinating to hear the club's view on this, although little has been said since the announcement, apart from Academy boss John Pemberton expressing his disappointment about the position the club finds itself in regarding EPPP on a local radio phone-in. So here is an open invite to those in senior positions at Bramall Lane. Tell us how the club anticipate dealing with the imposition of the EPPP, what it means for our academy and the impact it will have on the club's finances going forward. I will be happy to post the results of any interview on here.

Charting the 2011/12 Season in Football - Number 3

Charting the Season in Football returns, with the latest graphical commentary focusing on the egos at Sheffield Wednesday, the Madness of Mario Balotelli, Manchester City optimism, Ian Holloway's selection dilemmas, boring, long-running sagas, Stuart Pearce's Olympic selection conundrum, the controversy surrounding the EPPP proposals and Robbie Savage on Strictly Come Dancing.

Remember - Just double click on a graph/chart to increase to full size.

Previous in this series can be found here:

2011/12 Season - Part 1 

2011/12 Season - Part 2

Eddie Windass - Can you see where I am coming from??