Does The National Youth League Have a Future?

When the FFA announced the formation of the National Youth League which commenced in 2008 there was a great deal of positivity surrounding the competition. After all this was the cream of the youth around the country looking to impress and earn an A-League contract. Not only that, but coaching at this level were some coaches with ambitions to move on to bigger and better things.

The interesting thing in the formative years was the approach taken by the various A-League clubs and their Youth Coaches. Mike Mulvey who had fantastic success at Gold Coast United stated that he felt it was his job to prepare as many players as possible for a career in football, whether that was at the Gold Coast or elsewhere. With the club closing down it proved to be elsewhere.

At Melbourne Victory they had a different approach under the astute Ernie Merrick, who was the head coach at the time. Their team under Mehmet Durakovic took the approach of looking at players over a three year cycle. They picked a set number of players in each age-band, and Each year they wanted to see the players in their squad improve and earn their spot in the squad the following year. Those who failed to improve were replaced. The aim was to groom players to be ready to make the next step up to the A-League.

It is worth remembering that the aim of the National Youth League was predominantly to give the National Youth Team coaches a pool of talent to select from, and hopefully improve Australia’s performances at Youth World Cups.

All of the players selected in the youth teams had to be between the ages of 16 and 21 at the start of the calendar year of each new season. Four over-age players from each of the senior teams were also allowed to be selected. This gave clubs the chance to give players returning from injury game time. It also often raised the level of the competition.

Sadly though the FFA tried to run before it could walk. With little sponsorship dollars to cover the cost of a home and away season, the bills fell fairly and squarely in the laps of the A-League license holders. With the first team struggling to cover costs each week, they understandably bucked at this extra cost. Few saw the benefits of such a team.

Ironically now that most A-League clubs have teams in their local NPL competitions and they see the chance to make money from Development fees, they suddenly have found that having a youth set up is much more worthwhile.

Regrettably the National Youth League has now become almost meaningless. In 2015 the FFA announced a move to reduce costs at the expense of development. The A-League clubs would now have their “youth” teams entered into their local conferences of the National Premier Leagues. By having NPL teams, this would we were told become the “pathway” to a professional contract for our young talent. So the National Premier Leagues instead of becoming the most competitive and highest quality competition below the A-League, became a nursery. A place where a points system penalised older players and clubs were forced to play young players who may not have been ready to play at this level.

From 2016 the National YOUth League season was shortened from 18 games per team to 8 games plus a Grand Final. This was in spite of the FFA actually stating that its youth players needed to play more football, that they needed to be playing all the year around.

The ten National Youth League teams were then divided into two conferences of five teams each. All the teams playing all the other teams in their conference on a home and away basis. After the home and away season is completed the top two teams meet in a Grand Final.

Of course the big question now is whether as intended, the National Youth League is in fact producing the next generation of A-League players and Australian Youth Players?

As we all know those who manage to fulfil the dream of millions and earn a professional football contract are very much in the minority. It is in fact less than one percent of those playing the game.

So based on that statistic should the A-League clubs be pleased if they have one player every couple of years that goes on to forge a career in the A-League?

That may well be how the clubs look at the situation, and why shouldn’t they, after all they are businesses.

If we look at those players honoured to have won the Player of the year award at Youth Level all who won the award up until the 2014/15 season were given A-League contracts. Only one of the five recipients did not go on and have a career in the professional game after only three appearances with the Central Coast Mariners. One has just returned to semi-professional ranks at the age of 29.

As for those who have been afforded the honour of player of the year since 2014/15 once again all saw themselves give A-League contracts. Two of the four have already been discarded before they turned 22 years of age and are back playing in their respective NPL competitions.

This should come as no surprise. The turnover of young talent in this country is alarming and is now seeing many walk away from the game in their early twenties with their dreams and ambitions in tatters. What happened to those who polished the talented youth and prepared them for a career in professional football? It should therefore come as no surprise that Australia has at the current time the lowest number of players playing in top flight leagues around the world for twenty years.

The number of talented players that are being signed up to the Youth set ups of A-League clubs only to be released back to NPL clubs begs the question as to whether there is in fact any need for a National Youth League. Is it serving any purpose, let alone the purpose for which it was created?

With NPL clubs having up-skilled their coaching staff, most NPL clubs should have in place coaches on a par with those in the A-League set ups; although, as we know there are some exceptional youth coaches who stand apart. So would these players not be better off training and playing with their NPL clubs and learning their craft there and understanding what it means to be a part of a club. Of course the key aspect here is the quality of the players playing alongside them also needs to improve. However if we manage to keep those discarded players in the game that will surely happen.

In place of the National Youth League set up why could we not go back to Interstate Championships? An open age tournament would certainly peak the interest of many. Aligned to that should also be an under 23’s or under 21’s tournament for that age group to shine.

The NPL reserves should return to being an under 23 tournament and would give these players a reason to excel. Having made it an under 21 competition we have again pushed players out of the game. Some players mature late, some mature physically later than others, by restricting this level to under 21’s we are again pushing players that are capable of being first team players out of the competition.

With the National Championships players selected would play for their state rather than the privately owned A-League franchises. Eligibility to represent the state would revert back to the days of old where players had to be permanent residents or Australian citizens. Or, if this tournament is to be one at which the A-League coaches send their scouts to find up and coming talent or even mature-age talent, then maybe the criteria should be the same as the A-League. In other words players must be Australian passport holders.

Some may say that each State should be allowed one or two imports to raise the standard. There is some merit in that argument, however if this is about developing talent to play in the A-League and for our international Youth teams then it suddenly loses its appeal.

Football is a game of passion. Australia is a passionate country when it comes to sport. It is also a very territorial country. This is clear every year when the State of Origin in Rugby League takes place. So surely having each State play each other for national honours makes more sense than having the A-league owners stump up costs for a Youth League team. Costs to cover a team that will in the main all be released back to the NPL once they reach the age of 21. There is no doubt clubs and local fans would take pride in seeing local people wearing the colours of their various states.

Here is however the elephant in the room, if the A-League owners are not going to pay who will? Surely the success of the State of Origin and the clear rivalry from state to state would make this concept an easy sell for those in the sponsorship department of the FFA? State colours and a marketing campaign would soon have people on board, after all the honour of representing your state would be on the line.

Would you support your local players if they were representing Western Australia, Victoria or New South Wales?

Of course the fear is that the standard of the NPL has fallen in some states to a level where the State team simply would not be competitive. That argument can be countered with the fact that here you would have the best players player as one, playing for one team. You would expect all to lift a notch or two for the honour of donning their states colours and representing them against the rest of Australia.

Then again there may be plans afoot to revitalise the National Youth League. If there are no such plans then an alternative needs to be found and quickly or a generation of talented players will be lost.