Recent story in New York Times about the so-called "academy" youth programs of British Premier League clubs and Focus Football, founded to help those youngsters who were released from the academies.
Parents pay Focus $100 a month for two training sessions and one game a week in the hopes their son will get back to an EPL Academy. But the odds are overwhelmingly against it.
The Times article quotes author Michael Calvin, who wrote a book about the academy economy as saying only 180 of the 1.5 million boys who play organized youth soccer in England at any one time will ever play in the Premier League.
“You are like a piece of meat really,” one Focus parent said of her son’s dismissal by a Premier League academy. “They need you until they don’t.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment