EPL academy looks for 10,000 hours

Henry Winter writes of how the English Premier League is taking inspiration from the world of music and dance in regards to a potential drastic overhaul of the current academy system.

At the Menuhin music school, each budding virtuoso has 10,840 hours of contact time in their development years, three times the football figure. Pupils at the Royal Ballet receive 10,000 hours’ tuition. This is much in line with the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell writes about in books like 'Outliers' that stress the necessary amount of training and development to become a virtuoso.

The supply line to England needs improving and Roddy believes that “it could be 10 years before the benefits are fully felt”. Although talents such as Jack Wilshere are emerging, the crisis in youth development is not simply related to technical deficiencies.

Some academy directors despair at the declining fitness levels of English youth, particularly in the under-resourced state sector. Everton have even begun sending coaches into primary schools.

Premier League plans coincide with a new FA coaching strategy, focusing more on small-sided games, a philosophy that the more enlightened clubs, such as United, have long advocated. The FA will help coach the coaches at their National Football Centre at Burton, so providing the elite with more specialist, age-appropriate coaches.

On average, a young player in Spain will have enjoyed 4,880 hours contact time with an elite club such as Barcelona from the ages of nine to 21. Holland and France pour even more time into coaching youngsters, 5,940 hours and 5,740 hours respectively. An English tyro will have only 3,760.

Under the FA’s Charter for Quality introduced in 1997, Premier League clubs are permitted three hours’ contact time a week with nine to 11 year-olds, those progressing through what Dennis Bergkamp calls the “golden years of learning”.

In the 12-16 age group, English contenders are limited to five hours a week while those at Bergkamp’s Ajax have 10-12. Wonder why England struggle? Do the maths.

“Our boys are disadvantaged compared to European boys, where they have full-time, well paid coaches,” said the Premier League’s head of youth, Jed Roddy. “We’ve made it very easy for managers to resource their clubs from abroad.”