That interview is worth watching. I wish I could find it now. The figures were something like £30 - 40m spent so far on the academy, and there was a figure of over £10m spent just on the pitches (can't remember if that was part of the overall spend or in addition to it). I remember Neville being gobsmacked by the costs.

I can't remember if Parsh broke down the running costs, but £5m a year seems to be the average. The upfront costs of building it are of course a one-off, but even so, between building it and running it, it will have cost around £100m in ten years' time.

Whereas, all things being equal, the main stand has a good chance of paying for itself in a 10-15 year period, the academy is simply a cost unless it produces players that either get sold for good money (far more than the £1m we apparently made for O'Brien) or which save us from spending money on transfer fees.

Again, I wholly support the investment in the academy. My point is that nobody should underestimate the size of that investment.

I agree that we should, in theory, now produce better players than we used to as a result of the academy. My earlier point was that most clubs tend to have (i.e. can afford) a youth set-up commensurate to the standard of their first team. The better your first team, the more you can spend on your youth set up but, at the same time, the better your first team is, the harder it is for a youth player to make it at your club.

Maybe, as you say, Rak-Sakyi is today's Sullay Kai Kai, Jake O'Brien is today's Ryan Innis, David Ozoh is today's Hiram Boateng. Each of those individuals appears to be an upgrade on their predecessor, but not necessarily be any closer to breaking into our first team, because that too has been upgraded. Rak-Sakyi has played a bit, but that is only because Olise is injured. The gap between the youth team and first team may well remain as wide as ever.

Chelsea have produced (and generally not found a significant use for) Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, Hudson-Odoi, Tomori and Abraham. That seems to be the gold standard of academy products. All those players would have improved our team (two of them did) and/or made us a big fee, but the fact we now have a Cat 1 academy doesn't mean we will attract and develop players that good.

I expect we will still get the next level down, probably, because Chelsea and Arsenal remain more attractive. Spurs too, probably. Then we have to compete with West Ham, Fulham, and even Brentford. If we had a s*** facility, crap coaches and poor scouting then we would lose out to all of those clubs, but that doesn't mean having a great facility, good coaching and thorough scouting will trump those other clubs. They all have that stuff too. Thats why I feel we have spent the money just to keep up, rather than to obtain any advantage.

Basically, I am very happy with the investment, and would be thrilled to see it pay off, but would be surprised if it resulted in a marked increase in the number of players that make it at Palace.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (06 Nov 2023 5.24pm)

Surely the question is not just how the costs of the academy compare to the cost of transfers, but whether the academy produces players that do as good a job as those we buy.

However frustrating and overpaid Benteke and Sakho were, the academy will have to produce players that good. Not easy.

Do these young kids who are playing in the cages around London even consider the facilities at a professional club ? I doubt it very much.

If they're offered a trial at Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs or Palace (cat A or not), I'm sure we would be last on their list, purely down to status, history and perception of the clubs.

All of these kids think that they're the next big thing, so they'd rather be a star for Arsenal than Palace. We just might get some cast-offs when reality hits home that they're not as good as they thought they were, and are released from their preferred club.

O'Brien is not a Palace player, he was signed by a French club. His short time at Palace was spent on loan.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

The EPPP Academy system was brought about to improve the standard of home grown players into the leagues and not just for the parent club - the original plan was to raise the standard of home grown player to a standard that would produce an international team that would win the world cup - During a kids academy journey this is usually outlined to them during their reviews(similar to learning a trade rather than learning to work for one employer). As such clubs receive yearly funding from the Premier league to run and maintain their academies - The funding given is reflects the academy standing (as such Cat 1's get the highest funding - Cat 4's the lowest) If a club unearths a gem that stays or a gem that they can sell on for profit then that's fantastic.

For those interested.

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Can't find PL figures but Fulham has been a Cat 1 for some time and while they were in the championship this was their funding

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I haven't heard many obsessed with the Academy. I didn't even watch the series to my chagrin. I'm slightly interested in how our youngsters do, I keep half an eye on it. That's about it. Is everyone else obsessed? Parish maybe, for a while. Maybe I'm the odd one and everyone else is collecting stickers or something?

Red and Blue Army!