The Central Coast Mariners Panny Nikas was named Youth League Player of the year, after an outstanding year, where he earned a short-term first team contract and ended the season as top scorer playing in midfield. Mind you he was the penalty-taker, which always helps.
Graham Arnold the new coach at the Mariners has made the decision not to sign Nikas for next season, which raised a few eyebrows on the central coast, yet no other A league coaches are circling to snap up the Youth team player.
Which raises the question; do the A League coaches as a whole see a relevance for the National Youth League? Or does it mean that those doing the voting in the National Youth League were wrong? A number of this year’s crop of Youth league players find themselves out of contract with no where to go despite having had seasons of which to be proud and in which they caught the eye. Sadly football is a subjective game where one man’s opinion differs from the next. Some of these young boys are learning this early in life.
