09:52 PM
12/21/24
12/21/24
August 01, 2014
Will Financial Fair Play kill youth development at larger clubs?: "They will, at some point, be sold on, a premium fee guaranteed by having attended finishing school at one of the world's elite clubs. Chelsea are essentially running a recruitment and development business completely unrelated to their first team . . . Investment in their youth structures is exempt from FFP. But the money the club raise by selling players is not. They are making their money work for them. As one observer put it to me Wednesday, they are 'gaming' FFP."
Since I don't believe coincidences this is weird but my carpool mate and I were discussing this just 30 minutes ago on the ride into work. He's from Ireland and a lifelong Liverpool fan so he hates Chelsea on principal but even so points to, say, Lukaku as an example of everything wrong with youth development today.