Scottish Kids Chance of Playing

[kumnio]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7404182/2026/08/02/scotland-world-cup-young-players/?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.ZuYX.k2osWS2uHYl_&smid=ta-android-share

A good read.

Our young players moving to England and disappearing is helping to stagnate us.

We really desperately need to find a way of decoupling from England..

[GHfaeGTA]

28 minutes ago, kumnio said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7404182/2026/08/02/scotland-world-cup-young-players/?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.ZuYX.k2osWS2uHYl_&smid=ta-android-share

A good read.

Our young players moving to England and disappearing is helping to stagnate us.

We really desperately need to find a way of decoupling from England..

There are signs that the development of the cooperation loan arrangement is making a difference. Rangers have managed to keep hold of their best 16 year olds and they are now playing league football. Dundee United just loaned 3 16/17 year olds to Clyde and other clubs using this system. If they get first team football  then that can only be a good thing as opposed to academy football down south. 

[Contrarian]

At any level, in any country, you’re lucky if there are more than 2 players in a club’s youth team who the staff believe will make it, and possibly 1 or 2 borderline cases. They’ll never tell the kids or their parents, but the rest are just there to provide the best possible development environment for those they’ve earmarked. Team mates and opposition.  That's what these Premier League clubs are often doing, although I understand that they genuinely have high hopes for a couple of cases.

Now in the context of our particular issue, some might say that these players wouldn’t be making it anyway, but whilst that might be the case in some instances, overall it’s not as simple as that. There are exceptions of course, but the ages of 16 to 19 are generally the ‘make or break’ years, and certainly the ‘break’, if they don’t get the right playing environment. Too many of those lads are spending these important development years playing kiddies football. For example I fear, and obviously I very much hope I’m wrong, that Rory Wilson will now not make it at any meaningful level. The guy left his teenage years behind without kicking a single ball in men’s football. If they are serious about their careers, that’s absolutely ridiculous.  

Kerr Smith, Lewis Pirie, Josh Adam, Dylan Kerr, to name but four, surely all are thinking ‘what if’ right now. 

It’s no coincidence that the one recent starlet who is appearing regularly in a top 5 league, is the kid who’s dad was a pro, so he had the right guidance. But in all fairness to the kids who chase the money, the other massive difference with Lennon Miller is that Motherwell gave him the game time at a young age.  If more clubs did that, then they could genuinely say to kids ‘look, you can play here, develop properly in a 1st team environment, then make a much bigger and more lucrative move with 100 games behind you’.  Then they have a decision to make.  But at the moment, what agents will be whispering in the ears of these lads, and significantly their parents, is “if you’re going to be sitting on a bench or playing in a youth team anyway, why wouldn't you do it at an English Premier League club for 10 times what these are paying you to not be playing?” Which you can understand to a point. 

It’s a real problem, let's hope that the cooperation loan system will help the situation, it appears promising but a bit early to tell for sure.

[Burj_Alba]

1 hour ago, Contrarian said:

At any level, in any country, you’re lucky if there are more than 2 players in a club’s youth team who the staff believe will make it, and possibly 1 or 2 borderline cases. They’ll never tell the kids or their parents, but the rest are just there to provide the best possible development environment for those they’ve earmarked. Team mates and opposition.  That's what these Premier League clubs are often doing, although I understand that they genuinely have high hopes for a couple of cases.

Now in the context of our particular issue, some might say that these players wouldn’t be making it anyway, but whilst that might be the case in some instances, overall it’s not as simple as that. There are exceptions of course, but the ages of 16 to 19 are generally the ‘make or break’ years, and certainly the ‘break’, if they don’t get the right playing environment. Too many of those lads are spending these important development years playing kiddies football. For example I fear, and obviously I very much hope I’m wrong, that Rory Wilson will now not make it at any meaningful level. The guy left his teenage years behind without kicking a single ball in men’s football. If they are serious about their careers, that’s absolutely ridiculous.  

Kerr Smith, Lewis Pirie, Josh Adam, Dylan Kerr, to name but four, surely all are thinking ‘what if’ right now. 

It’s no coincidence that the one recent starlet who is appearing regularly in a top 5 league, is the kid who’s dad was a pro, so he had the right guidance. But in all fairness to the kids who chase the money, the other massive difference with Lennon Miller is that Motherwell gave him the game time at a young age.  If more clubs did that, then they could genuinely say to kids ‘look, you can play here, develop properly in a 1st team environment, then make a much bigger and more lucrative move with 100 games behind you’.  Then they have a decision to make.  But at the moment, what agents will be whispering in the ears of these lads, and significantly their parents, is “if you’re going to be sitting on a bench or playing in a youth team anyway, why wouldn't you do it at an English Premier League club for 10 times what these are paying you to not be playing?” Which you can understand to a point. 

It’s a real problem, let's hope that the cooperation loan system will help the situation, it appears promising but a bit early to tell for sure.

Excellent post and 100% agree.

As an example, the Aberdeen bench yesterday had last year's "breakout stars", Milne and Lobban as non playing subs, Hearts had Wilson in the same category. No idea where Frame was.

Looking at the BBC transfer "gossip" today not one Scottish player was mentioned as a potential signing. 

Cannot see that changing when the likes of Robinson and Goodwin have big influences of transfers.

 

[Tartan blood]

2 hours ago, Contrarian said:

At any level, in any country, you’re lucky if there are more than 2 players in a club’s youth team who the staff believe will make it, and possibly 1 or 2 borderline cases. They’ll never tell the kids or their parents, but the rest are just there to provide the best possible development environment for those they’ve earmarked. Team mates and opposition.  That's what these Premier League clubs are often doing, although I understand that they genuinely have high hopes for a couple of cases.

Now in the context of our particular issue, some might say that these players wouldn’t be making it anyway, but whilst that might be the case in some instances, overall it’s not as simple as that. There are exceptions of course, but the ages of 16 to 19 are generally the ‘make or break’ years, and certainly the ‘break’, if they don’t get the right playing environment. Too many of those lads are spending these important development years playing kiddies football. For example I fear, and obviously I very much hope I’m wrong, that Rory Wilson will now not make it at any meaningful level. The guy left his teenage years behind without kicking a single ball in men’s football. If they are serious about their careers, that’s absolutely ridiculous.  

Kerr Smith, Lewis Pirie, Josh Adam, Dylan Kerr, to name but four, surely all are thinking ‘what if’ right now. 

It’s no coincidence that the one recent starlet who is appearing regularly in a top 5 league, is the kid who’s dad was a pro, so he had the right guidance. But in all fairness to the kids who chase the money, the other massive difference with Lennon Miller is that Motherwell gave him the game time at a young age.  If more clubs did that, then they could genuinely say to kids ‘look, you can play here, develop properly in a 1st team environment, then make a much bigger and more lucrative move with 100 games behind you’.  Then they have a decision to make.  But at the moment, what agents will be whispering in the ears of these lads, and significantly their parents, is “if you’re going to be sitting on a bench or playing in a youth team anyway, why wouldn't you do it at an English Premier League club for 10 times what these are paying you to not be playing?” Which you can understand to a point. 

It’s a real problem, let's hope that the cooperation loan system will help the situation, it appears promising but a bit early to tell for sure.

Exactly. The 2 options at the moment is: 1. Stay in Scotland and (probably) not play. 2. Leave Scotland and (probably) not play, but get paid well.

If we added in a 3rd option of 3. Stay in Scotland and play, I guarantee less players would leave. Especially old firm players who would actually get decent wages once they break through.

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

The SFA don't give a shit about player development, that's why they scrapped the (pretty terrible, in the first place) performance schools, without having a plan for the next phase. They want England to produce youngsters, to save them money.

[bazmidd]

4 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

The SFA don't give a shit about player development, that's why they scrapped the (pretty terrible, in the first place) performance schools, without having a plan for the next phase. They want England to produce youngsters, to save them money.

I agree with pretty much everything ont his apart from the SFA not giving a shit. I think they do, and they have tried things, and still are trying things. Unfortunately they don't have the power to take it as far as they would like. If they could I believe they absolutely would introduce rules etc for homegrown players but the clubs don't want it. They recently released a new document with a full strategy behind it, with loads of great things in there. A lot of it though relies on the clubs to vote through, and it won't happen

[BookhouseBoys]

I haven’t seen this mentioned before, so throwing in my two cents, happy to be educated why it’s be a bad idea, but I wonder if making a real push of Futsal throughout the country would be a way of bridging the technical skills gap. Much like how tennis players in Scotland would play badminton in the winter because of the weather, a lot more could be made of playing Futsal indoors (although it wouldn’t have to be exclusive to winter). Futsal uses a heavier ball that promotes technical skills and passing and wouldn’t be affected by the weather. Facilities wouldn't need to be an issue here either as pretty much every town either has indoor sports halls or at worst PE halls in at least one of their schools.

Obviously, the primary concern is rightly around quotas for Scottish players in the Premiership and that is something that must be implemented - surely 6 Scots in a matchday squad with minimum 3 being under 23 would be easy to implement with a bit of will and a grace period. A minimum number of minutes would surely have to be part of that too, to avoid youngsters just sitting on the bench, but I’m not sure how they’d feasibly implement that - a portion of prize money delegated as an incentive?
 

That being said, I think that we should still be focussed on the technical abilities of our players as well and wonder if Futsal could be a way to plug that gap…

 

[GlasWolf]

It's quite well known that Max Kilman, once of Wolves and now at West Ham, came into the pro football ranks via futsal.  I don't know how effective it would be in developing young players for us, but one interesting wrinkle is that international futsal caps are binding, just as in football.  Kilman wanted to play football for Ukraine, but wasn't allowed to because he played competitive futsal for England.  So if nothing else it would be a sneaky way to tie prospects to Scotland!

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

5 hours ago, bazmidd said:

I agree with pretty much everything ont his apart from the SFA not giving a shit. I think they do, and they have tried things, and still are trying things. Unfortunately they don't have the power to take it as far as they would like. If they could I believe they absolutely would introduce rules etc for homegrown players but the clubs don't want it. They recently released a new document with a full strategy behind it, with loads of great things in there. A lot of it though relies on the clubs to vote through, and it won't happen

What are the likes of Norway, Denmark and Croatia doing differently, that we can't implement though?

[Clyde1998]

Quote

There are clear pull factors: better money, a better games programme, better facilities and better coaching. Players are sometimes shown data by clubs in the Premier League demonstrating how likely a sustained professional career is if they join them.

The sad thing for Scottish football is that, generally, academy staff in England, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, concede that, in many cases, they are not buying these teenagers from Scotland in the belief they have discovered a future Premier League star. They are simply padding out their squads through the transition age, ruthlessly plucking players who represent an upgrade on what they already have to ensure the very top talents are surrounded by the best quality possible.

The economics are clear: it makes more sense to steal a Scottish youngster for €130,000 than a category 1 player in England for £400,000. If their presence helps develop a £40m player, these deals pay for themselves.

Some clubs accuse agents of pushing the players towards the exit door and earning hefty sums by doing so, but several agents, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, argue that the family always have final say and their job is to lay out the facts on what both options entail, including pathway and finances.

“In the absence of opportunity, why would you stay in the confines of Scotland where the provisions aren’t anywhere near the same?” says one agent, speaking under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships.

The pitch to stay in Scotland has to be an expedited pathway to the first team. Stay, play young, develop and then move straight into a first-team squad, having established yourself as capable of thriving in men’s football.

Unless FIFA hike up the compensation calculations, many clubs still feel helpless to stop the talent drain accelerating. English clubs only need to pay training compensation if they sign a player at 16 — usually around €130,000 — before they have signed a professional contract, meaning clubs are missing out on potential transfer fees into the millions. 

Some clubs took to banning scouts. Some clubs have even moved players around age groups and positions in a bid to throw off interested parties. There were attempts to guard against these raids by having early developers sign ‘pre-pro contracts’ at 14, essentially a commitment that they will sign when they reach 16. In practice, it was never more than a gentleman’s agreement and, when tested by English suitors, it was not defensible.

I wonder how much that €130k buyout for our young players acts as a determinant to increased youth funding for Scottish football.

Does it make any rational sense to increase youth funding to produce better players, if they're simply going to get picked up by an English club for €130k?

[Clyde1998]

6 hours ago, BookhouseBoys said:

I haven’t seen this mentioned before, so throwing in my two cents, happy to be educated why it’s be a bad idea, but I wonder if making a real push of Futsal throughout the country would be a way of bridging the technical skills gap. Much like how tennis players in Scotland would play badminton in the winter because of the weather, a lot more could be made of playing Futsal indoors (although it wouldn’t have to be exclusive to winter). Futsal uses a heavier ball that promotes technical skills and passing and wouldn’t be affected by the weather. Facilities wouldn't need to be an issue here either as pretty much every town either has indoor sports halls or at worst PE halls in at least one of their schools.

[...]

That being said, I think that we should still be focussed on the technical abilities of our players as well and wonder if Futsal could be a way to plug that gap…

Futsal could only be a positive for us.

I certainly wouldn't mind it being a requirement for development teams of our professional clubs to participate in it in order to develop technical skills (as well as certain mental attributes like composure and creativity) of players.

It would probably also help weed out those who've only ended up doing well at football in the younger age groups simply due to their physical ability, something which should become less relevant as players get older.

[er yir macaroon]

8 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

What are the likes of Norway, Denmark and Croatia doing differently, that we can't implement though?

They eat well and don’t carry a bottle of “juice” everywhere they go (except a car when they are compelled to chuck it out the window). 

[Hertsscot]

19 hours ago, Tartan blood said:

Exactly. The 2 options at the moment is: 1. Stay in Scotland and (probably) not play. 2. Leave Scotland and (probably) not play, but get paid well.

If we added in a 3rd option of 3. Stay in Scotland and play, I guarantee less players would leave. Especially old firm players who would actually get decent wages once they break through.

I guess that's where the co-operation loans might be beneficial. I was at Alloa on Saturday and the two loanees from Rangers played from the start, one was taken off half way through the second half, the other played the full 90 minutes. Neither are yet ready for first team football at Rangers but they are playing meaningful football and hopefully that will be good for their development.

[Scots_Wha_Hae]

I'm not disputing it has an impact, but if the total output of all Scottish football player development worth professional gametime in the period 2021-2026 was 66 players (and worse, only 35 in the 8 years preceding), just over 13 per year, that alone is a worrying statistic. A system as large as Scotland's should be able to sustain the loss of a dozen players per year while still having decent output even if you accept that the English clubs are always getting the very best (which I do not accept). The system is broken regardless of the actions of English clubs.

[bdgsct]

9 hours ago, Clyde1998 said:

I wonder how much that €130k buyout for our young players acts as a determinant to increased youth funding for Scottish football.

Does it make any rational sense to increase youth funding to produce better players, if they're simply going to get picked up by an English club for €130k?

There is a tipping point tho. €130k is too low but at £250k it would begin to be cost effective. There is greater value than the cash to help bring other youngsters into your own first team.

[kwhitelaw]

11 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

What are the likes of Norway, Denmark and Croatia doing differently, that we can't implement though?

Well, guess how many of those 3 leagues had their top division teams break away from their National Football Associations to run things themselves........

[bazmidd]

5 hours ago, kwhitelaw said:

Well, guess how many of those 3 leagues had their top division teams break away from their National Football Associations to run things themselves........

Pretty much it, everything those countries do is geared towards ultimately making the national team better, they all pull together in the same direction, all the clubs on the same page regards youth development, in this country every club has their own agenda

[jamboman]

1 hour ago, bazmidd said:

Pretty much it, everything those countries do is geared towards ultimately making the national team better, they all pull together in the same direction, all the clubs on the same page regards youth development, in this country every club has their own agenda

This is 100% it! And in my opinion this will never change.

You need to look at the fans though too. If a manager loses 3 games in a row, they are calling for their heads.

Then there is the "give the young guys a chance" talk but when it does not work that turns into "we need more experience"

Scottish football is purely results results results no matter what it does to the national team

We need a mentality shift like what norway, croatia etc have done. But that will never happen

[0Neils40yarder]

Until our league is expanded beyond 12 teams, clubs will continue to ignore their youth programmes...the stakes are just too high, with 10 out of 12 managers tasked with 'dont get fuckin relegated', first and foremost. Unless a kid is an exceptional talent like Lennon Miller, he won't see the light of day.

Seeing my own club, Motherwell, play games without a Scot in the team is painful despite the football that is on offer. The SFA and SPFL, need to take a long hard look in the mirror and make some major changes.

[bdgsct]

41 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

Until our league is expanded beyond 12 teams, clubs will continue to ignore their youth programmes...the stakes are just too high, with 10 out of 12 managers tasked with 'dont get fuckin relegated', first and foremost. Unless a kid is an exceptional talent like Lennon Miller, he won't see the light of day.

Seeing my own club, Motherwell, play games without a Scot in the team is painful despite the football that is on offer. The SFA and SPFL, need to take a long hard look in the mirror and make some major changes.

I don't think it's the size of the league. The current set up of only one team automatically down and a heavily biased play-off system must be one of the most secure top flights in Europe.

I think it is more, the short termism of managers hoping to avoid the sack, which usually lasts less than a season anyway. Clubs need to have a more long term plan to play progressive football and develop players. That comes primarily from the owners committing to the management and more importantly the management of the academy and then the buy in of the fans to have patience when results go against them.

[McTeeko]

11 hours ago, bdgsct said:

I don't think it's the size of the league. The current set up of only one team automatically down and a heavily biased play-off system must be one of the most secure top flights in Europe.

I think it is more, the short termism of managers hoping to avoid the sack, which usually lasts less than a season anyway. Clubs need to have a more long term plan to play progressive football and develop players. That comes primarily from the owners committing to the management and more importantly the management of the academy and then the buy in of the fans to have patience when results go against them.

100% it IS the size of the league. Towards the end of the season we regularly have 9, 10, 11 teams all playing for something. High stakes matches whether it’s for the league, Europe, top six (although that means fuck-all in reality), or avoiding relegation. A lot of pressure on managers to get results. Which is good for entertainment, excitement and viewing figures, however it means the managers have to play their best teams consistently to get results.

If we expanded to a bigger league then they’d be less pressure and the opportunity to play laddies. Yes, there’d be more meaningless games and dead rubbers but at least young players would get more opportunities.

[bdgsct]

40 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

100% it IS the size of the league. Towards the end of the season we regularly have 9, 10, 11 teams all playing for something. High stakes matches whether it’s for the league, Europe, top six (although that means fuck-all in reality), or avoiding relegation. A lot of pressure on managers to get results. Which is good for entertainment, excitement and viewing figures, however it means the managers have to play their best teams consistently to get results.

If we expanded to a bigger league then they’d be less pressure and the opportunity to play laddies. Yes, there’d be more meaningless games and dead rubbers but at least young players would get more opportunities.

I get your point but until clubs appoint progressive managers who see the bigger picture, things won't change. If we have a 14 team league with slightly more dead rubbers, the same managers will still play their best team throughout the whole season in order to enhance their own prospects. 

The nature of player development means you need to take risks and take hits for the long term development of the players and the club. I.e. sometimes not playing your best 11.

[Burj_Alba]

Reading all these posts  I thought I would keep track of how many Scottish eligible (SE) players actually played during a week game so devised this scoring system, starting in week 1.

The points system is 4 points if a SE started the match and 2 if one came on as a sub (not if he just sat on the bench for the 90+ minutes). Double points if one of those players is 23 or under.

Not a perfect system by any means as someone like Donovan got about 7 minutes yesterday. Also had to include McGregor who remains “eligible” and, the never will be capped, like Jason Holt or Greg Kiltie.

The colour scheme is an orangey colour for teams who won and blue for draws.

Will see how this develops over the weeks ahead but fancy Motherwell or Dundee United to challenge Rangers for a relegation spot.

 

[csinclair]

38 minutes ago, Burj_Alba said:

Reading all these posts  I thought I would keep track of how many Scottish eligible (SE) players actually played during a week game so devised this scoring system, starting in week 1.

The points system is 4 points if a SE started the match and 2 if one came on as a sub (not if he just sat on the bench for the 90+ minutes). Double points if one of those players is 23 or under.

Not a perfect system by any means as someone like Donovan got about 7 minutes yesterday. Also had to include McGregor who remains “eligible” and, the never will be capped, like Jason Holt or Greg Kiltie.

The colour scheme is an orangey colour for teams who won and blue for draws.

Will see how this develops over the weeks ahead but fancy Motherwell or Dundee United to challenge Rangers for a relegation spot.

 

Big fan of this sort of visual analysis. Keep up the good work