Quote Originally Posted by Doctor_Death View Post
I am led to believe the lad's wages at Chelsea are 30x bigger than what they were at the Alex! So you cannot blame the lad, you cannot blame the Alex for being held to ransom over a player who has not played 1st team football. You can however blame the FA, if in the normal working world a young person is not allowed to work shifts until they are 18 (and earn extra money), and is tied to a certain work pattern, why is it not possible for the FA to introduce a rule that young players have to stay with the club they went through the academy/youth set up with until they are 18, it would make things a lot fairer for clubs like the Alex and might actually allow the George Nunn's of the world to develop properly.
Unfortunately its not the FA who run football its the premier league that call the shots, the EPPP was put in place by the premier league, for the benefit of the premier league, the FA agreed to it after being told they would receive no money from the premier league if they didn't back it. I'm not sure why the football league backed the deal, they originally opposed the idea and then backed it when it was put to a vote, no doubt a meeting took place between the PL and FL and no doubt inducements were offered, not to the clubs involved though, but that's all water under the bridge I'm afraid. Unfortunately the FA is toothless when it comes to the premier league and the football league is equally toothless, so what is fair will never come into the equation and its unlikely the FA would be interested anyway, the football league certainly isn't.