Genuine question if TS come out and said forget paying out transfer fees he’s going to invest in academy how do you think that would be received?
You can call him short sighted but he clearly can’t do both.
He’s not wealthy enough.
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I know it costs money, but our only chance of competing at this level is to grow our own talent.
I'm sure if we had a proper academy it would attract more young talent, which in turn should help the first team, and save us money in the long run.
Also I believe we decided not to compete in a reserve league this season,just a cup competition, again surely this is backwards step, especially with the amount of players we have coming back from injuries.
I 2nd that we can hardly compete at this level now without reducing the 1st team squad budget to focus more on the academy. No fault of TS he puts enough money into this club. Rotherham public if they want a strong academy set up should have filled NYS then the capacity would have been increased the club could have in a better position to invest more in it.
Fred Onyedinma
28%
Christ Tiehi
37.5%
Tyler Blackett
34.5%
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It is a good question, I don't think it is a black or white answer though. We are assuming that we can only pay transfer fees if we don't have a good youth system, that isn't the case we see clubs lower down the pyramid that do both, some are named on this thread, I am sure there are more. If PW was wanting one and Warnock also saw it as an issue, then it does look like a very limiting decision. Also remember that the youth system is a revenue earner over time
Over the past 20 years. How many academy players have we sold for money. Wiles is the obvious one. How many more?
Jerry Yates?
Somehow in the 60s and 70s we produced good young players - Gru mentioned Breck, Finney, Crawford but forgot 3 of the best, the 3 Trevors - Swift, Womble & Phillips
But in those days of maximum wage, most players apprenticed to their hometown club unless they were really special, in which case the player's parents could start a bidding war - Alick Jeffrey's dad was a Rotherham fan but Donny came in with big bucks which they would have recovered many times over if Alick's move to Man U had gone ahead before his broken leg - certainly back in the 1950s most players, especially younger ones didn't have their own cars and carried on living at home - if you were on public transport, you didn't want to be going too far to training everyday and players at a successful Div 3 N club earned more, thanks to getting more win bonuses, then those playing for massive teams like Wednesday, 2 divisions higher but often struggling....... plus ca change....