Football News: England's Failure Caused By The Premier League

Youth football in England is struggling badly, there are numerous issues facing it as it moves forward into the future, as the national team slips away from the top of the international pyramid. We all know the outside pressures of lack of playing fields, games consoles and parents not allowing their children out to play are affecting the likelihood of future talent coming through. That is only part of the problem though.

In England just 2,679 coaches hold the UEFA badges, compared to 23,995 in Spain, 29,420 in Italy and 34,790 in Germany. That is the first situation that needs to be addressed, and not by encouraging ex-professional players to take their badges, but simply by making it affordable and accessible for the average joe in the street to get involved in coaching players. The likes of Ian Cathro (yes I know he is Scottish but the point still stands) show that there are top coaches out there that have never played at a professional level.

It may even be that their lack of time in the professional ranks may be an advantage, as they look at things from a fresh viewpoint rather than borrowing from the managers and coaches they have worked with in their playing career. The fresh eyes Cathro was able to throw upon the subject may have been what enabled him to create his Box Soccer Training methods, which have proved such a big success for him. His coaching ideas were so impressive that just half an hour demonstrating them during a UEFA course set him on the path he is now on.

The worrying thing is that England are not producing coaches like that, or enough coaches in general. When you look at a club like Crewe Alexandra, who emphasis good coaching to bring through young players into their first team from the academy, they have a larger number of youth coaches than most clubs in England. More coaches means more bad coaches, but it also means more good coaches, and you would hope that the cream would rise to the top of the coaching ladder.

I truly believe the English FA made a major mistake the day they closed Lilleshall, which was having the effect of bringing through some higher quality players than the standard youth academies. It just needed to increase its emphasis on technical coaching, improving those young players who were selected as much as possible. More than that, it should have become a centre of excellence for English coaches, to bring through a whole new generation of talented coaches ready to work with English clubs and the national side.

There is a very definite link between the numbers and quality of coaching and the level that young players reach. With English youngsters having the handicap of the richest league in the world at the top level of the game in the country, meaning the clubs are too scared to risk giving them a chance, there is a real need for some other way to raise the level of quality. I would like to see the English clubs look to train coaches themselves, again not from ex-pros, but from fans that wish to learn the game.

The ex-pros already have the help of the PFA, if they want to get into coaching there is nothing to stop them and everything is done to help smooth their path into the ranks of professional coaching. The path from player to coach is well defined and organised to make it as smooth and as easy as possible. Where is the path from fan of the game to professional coach though?

Other countries around Europe have that path, England is neglecting it badly, expecting coaches to fund course costing thousands of pounds a time out of their own pocket. There is always talk of how the FA want to fund grassroots football, well it is about time they did so. With the millions of pounds they have available, stop wasting them on all weather pitches that no one can afford to use, start putting the money towards funding coaching courses for those wanting a first step on the ladder and beyond.

The FA would then be able to fund the pick of those coaches through the UEFA courses, cherrypicking the very best to enter the England set up. It is not a cheap short term fix, but it is needed, as the club game is not there to produce players for the English national side, it is there to win trophies for the clubs. You can't ask those clubs to put the national team's interests ahead of their own, it requires the national association to work on their own behalf, instead of sitting back and counting the money.

Written by Tris Burke September 18 2015 12:52:00