An interesting piece from the Evening News:
‘With its multi-million pound base, part of United's gigantic Trafford Training Complex at Carrington, the academy provides youngsters with better facilities than many Premiership professionals enjoy. Everything seems rosy in the United garden, but according to Les Kershaw, the man behind the academy, life was much better without it!
‘"We invest more than £3m a year into it and we never wanted an academy in the first place," he said. "We feel we would do better if we didn't have one, but we have to be part of the system because you have to have somebody to play at football. If we found a way out that could better what we are doing, we would be out tomorrow."
‘Such frankness might cause a stir within football's establishment but Kershaw speaks from experience. He has been involved with United's search for young talent since the early days of Sir Alex Ferguson's reign as manager and is adamant he knows the best approach.
‘The club's former chief scout, a former university lecturer in physical chemistry, reckons United were doing very nicely before being forced to take an alternative route. The academy scheme was launched in 1998 after Howard Wilkinson produced a blueprint about the future of developmental football," Kershaw said.
‘"The idea was to introduce a system to produce a future England team capable of winning a World Cup. The ideas were right and you cannot argue against that. Academies were created as elitist organisations and nobody made any apologies for that. By definition, elite organisations should be few and far between - there aren't a lot of Manchester Grammar Schools - but what they have done is dilute an elite product by having too many.
‘"You can only have local kids in your academy which means that the boy who lives further away has no chance of being a United player," Kershaw said. "Kids commit themselves to an academy at eight years of age and that is a career decision.
"The authorities argue that it isn't, but it is because from then on they all have a pound sign on their heads. Compensation has to be paid even for an eight or nine-year-old kid if he goes to another club, but there are no rules in place to tell you how much it is. Kids now are slaves to an immoral system which could be a good system but things are not being done properly. You can only take local kids and we have to scout heavily for the others.
‘"Pique wasn't born within an hour of Manchester, and neither were Irish lads Darren Gibson or Johnny Evans, David Gray (Scotland), Floribert N'Galula (Belgium) or Jami Puustinen (Finland)," Kershaw said. “We can look at a boy who is out of contract and take him on because we know what he is going to cost. That is not the case with English youngsters. At present there is a boy everybody is talking about who they reckon will go to Arsenal or Chelsea or maybe come to us. He is a very talented player but the cost element will be more than Rossi, Pique and N'Galula put together, and that will only be the start.
‘"If he makes his first team debut, gets an Under-21 cap and plays 10 senior games it could cost you £2m to £3m. That is about 20 times what we have paid for Rossi and Pique and that is why we scout internationally. Geoff Watson, Jimmy Ryan and other scouts are forever on aeroplanes bringing them in.
‘"Darren Gibson and Johnny Evans are doing well. Sylvain Blake is coming along fine and young Paul McShane is going to be a smashing player. There are goalkeepers like Luke Steele and Tom Heaton and boys who have already been in the first team squad like David Jones and Chris Eagles.
"All our kids from six to 11 are riddled with technical skill. They are all virtually as comfortable on their left side as on their right and all encouraged to dribble. Academies are full of `receive, pass, run for a space'. Smashing, but at Old Trafford we want somebody who says `receive the ball, now go and take on that full-back'. That applies to defenders as well.’