Football Wonderkid Scout

 Head Of English Youth Trevor Brooking

£1 million a week into the grassroots of football but we need the public's support to drive a sea-change away from outdated image of kid's football in this country, one driven by results with scant regard for developing future players. In the last two years we have totally revamped all of our coaching courses. "The priority has to be improving skills at a young age, before it becomes too late."

The blueprint for the much delayed £100 million National Football Centre will include a hotel development and a large housing scheme in order to cut costs to the Football Association. The centre, which is aimed to be a training base for all the England senior and junior teams has been declared by England manager Fabio Capello of "paramount importance," who saw a similar setup in his native Italy. "The venue will be an inspirational site, a place for coaches and players to work, learn and develop, Capello commented. "This is a much needed facility and through my own experiences at Coverciano in Italy I understand the importance of the centre for England." Since its inception, the centre has been undermined by funding doubts as the cost of Wembley spiralled. A network of regional academies was raised as a possible alternative, along with scrapping the concept altogether, before it was finally approved by the FA in December 2007. The 360-acre site in Staffordshire will become the most modern national football centres in the world and will boast eight floodlit pitches amongst its resources. The new National Football Centre will be different to that of of the famous and successful Lilleshall which was established by the Football Associational in 1984. It was closed in the summer of 1999 under the guidance of former technical director Howard Wilkinson, in order to be replaced by academies at leading clubs. Lilleshall football academy was a centralised youth development programme fully funded by the Football Association and in its time produced players such as Jermaine Defoe, Michael Owen, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Scott Parker, Sol Campbell, Andy Cole and Wes Brown. The school came under criticism due to its centralist and perceived anti-club agenda and when it was closed, the concept was replicated at club level and has since been copied by other football associations.

It remains to be seen whether the new National Football Centre will have a long lasting impact on the success of the England national team in the years to come. While it must be acknowledged that kids need to be taught the technical skills and style from a young age, there also needs to be a strategic review of the rules and regulations in the domestic game. The failure of England in South Africa appears to have accelerated this plan when the Football Association announced that Premier League clubs are to include at least 8 home-grown players into their 25 man squad for the forthcoming season. The main aim is to encourage more home-grown players and to give more and equal opportunities to players who climb through the ranks at their clubs. By increasing opportunities for younger players, there is hope that clubs will be encouraged to further invest in youth development and thus create a greater pool of English internationals. Clubs can expect to make huge savings on transfer fees and wages, as home-grown players are expected to be less demanding in terms of wages and this is another important factor in promoting youth development given the financial constraints facing clubs. The new rules are expected to produce a new pool of young talented players good enough to represent England and replace the failed "Golden Generation" of English internationals. However, this may only go some way to resolving the problem as home-grown players under Premier League guidelines include only association trained players which are those who have been registered by the FA for a total of three years before he turns 21. Therefore, should England's big four clubs continue their youth development policy of recruiting the most talented players from around the continent and exploiting contract loopholes, players like Cesc Fabregas and Gerard Pique would have been classed as home-grown and not helping the talent pool of young English players. Currently 85% of players in the academies are English, but it is considerably less at the Premier League's big four clubs and therefore missing out invaluable Champions League experience. While the Premier League remains the richest league in the world, its clubs combined spend less on youth development than those in the Bundisliga which may be another reason for the contrasting fortunes in the two countries at international level.