About a month ago, almost all of us were labelling this year’s Premier League season as one of the dullest ever, with Manchester United playing their brand of expensive and sexy football while their nearest rivals, Liverpool and Chelsea, looked a shadow of the teams they started the season with.
But much has changed in four week s, and if not for a seventeen year old Italian, Manchester United would have been third in the table right now with a game in hand.
Yes, I’m taking about the new “wonderkid” in the world of football, Federico Macheda.
Being a Blue’s fan for a good nine years, I couldn’t hide my jealousy towards Manchester United’s scouting system and wondered how many young talents Chelsea had brought up from their youth system. To my astonishment, only one name popped up: John Terry.
Beyond that, there’s Jody Morris.
We all know how UEFA is pushing hard for the 6+5 rule in club football. I think this is one the best decisions made by UEFA: not only it will see the growth of young talents, but will also reduce the clubs’ dependence on foreign players and prevent them from facing financial dilemmas.
But now, after the unveiling of the whole Macheda’s transfer story, I think UEFA has far bigger things to worry about that the 6+5 rule.
Let’s just look at Lazio’s case.
It’s a club with an excellent young system which has brought the likes of Alessandro Nesta on, but as with all Italian clubs, it is struggling to compete with English clubs financially.
Clubs like Lazio look into their youth system and expect to bring players into their first team.
Now if, for instance, the 6+5 rule was in place, Lazio would most likely buy five foreign players and bring the other six in from their youth system.
But if English clubs keep exploiting the flaw in the European system by offering contracts to 17 year-old players, and taking their players for free, clubs like Lazio will either have to bring in players from their youth system who are not as good to play in the first team or may have to go to the domestic market to buy Italian players and pay twice the transfer value.
Eventually they will face the age old financial problem.
The 6+5 rule will never exploit its full potential if UEFA does not take a closer look at the whole “offering contracts to 16 and 17 year old” issue.
Not only does the feeder club lose out on their quality youth talent, but they also miss the financial gains that would have been made if they actually sell the player.
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