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Feeder clubs - Beneficial in the long term?
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:33 pmby stmichael
I was speaking to a friend of mine earlier who is a Birmingham fan and in conversation he mentioned about Birmingham having a tie-up with Willem II in Holland. According to reports, this allows Brum to have some access to talent Holland and Belgium.
I believed we used to have one 'unofficial' feeder club in Crewe a few seasons back. We did send some young players there on loan before. However I don't believe we have ever had a foreign club as a feeder club (Would Le Harve count?). Man U has Royal Antwerp and some Brazilian team I think while Arsenal has Beveren and Chelsea has PSV (!) as feeder clubs. They send their young players out there on loan to get some experience or use them to get around work permit regulations. Sometimes they discover promising players from those teams as well and can pick them up cheaply.
Would it be beneficial for us to establish such a system? By having a network of feeder clubs all around the world we could therotically unearth some potential gems. We could also send some out of our more promising players out on loan to get experience and a feel of other playing styles. Maybe we could actually start in Spain, given Rafa's possible connections. Spain seems to have many young gifted players at the moment and wouldnt it be great if we could actually play a role in developing the next Alonso or Morientes? We could also technically have first option on these players!
What do you guys think? Good or bad idea? 
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:44 pmby Ciggy
Great idea Stmick, Spain and Holland I think for the market though.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:01 pmby jonnymac1979
stmichael wrote:I was speaking to a friend of mine earlier who is a Birmingham fan and in conversation he mentioned about Birmingham having a tie-up with Willem II in Holland. According to reports, this allows Brum to have some access to talent Holland and Belgium.
They missed a diamond in big Sami then didn't they?
If Birmingham would have signed Sami, he would have shone and would have left them to go to a bigger club anyway, but they would have made a few million on him.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:08 pmby bigmick
One market which I'm surprised nobody has really got into is the Australia/New Zealand one. Lot's of players coming out of there just now and a couple of hundred grand donation to Melbourne Villa (or whatever they're called) to spend on their youth programme might be money well spent in five years.
On the subject of new players, did anybody see that Jarocik or whatever he's called for Chelski last night. Came on as sub and looked really good. 2.5 million, they are out there if you know where to look.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:21 pmby LFCFan4Life
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:22 pmby JBG
Both Madrid and Barcelona have their own feeder clubs in Spain, those being essentially smaller clubs in the lower divisions where Madrid and Barca players routinely go on loan or make come backs from injury.
Man UTD also have some deal with Sporting Lisbon, although the term "feeder" club is a bit loose. PSV have a deal with Chelsea where Chelsea might have first option on PSV's players, while PSV will get to have one or two Chelsea players fromSouth America for a season or two.
For me, a club from the Benelux countries would be the best, as they are supposedly one of the easiest environments for extra-European (i.e. African and South American) to settle in. Their leagues are relatively weak in so far as your young player sent on loan there would always get a game, yet still strong enough for him to develop his game.
On one hand Bigmick makes a very good point about Australia, but on the other hand, the problem with Australian players is the craziness with international matches in the southern hemisphere.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:27 pmby stmichael
John Barnes' Granny wrote:Man UTD also have some deal with Sporting Lisbon, although the term "feeder" club is a bit loose.
There was a report that The Scum bought C.Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon over us and Arsenal. We bid £3.4m, the same as Arsenal, but Utd bid a hell of a lot more, £12.1m (but most of that would have been agents fees)
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:36 pmby bigmick
JBG it's probably only a matter of time that for all but competitive games, Australia will play all their games at Loftus Road as they have done a couple of times recently. After that, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect them to play all their home fixtures in a qualifying tournament over a three week period so you would lose the player for a similar amount of time that you would for say Copa America.
Given the money in domestic football these days the players will insist that the AFA does this before long so as not to put their livelyhoods in danger.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:49 pmby ronmeister
i thought Gh set up a feeder club in france when we got la tallec and pongelle i was pretty sure i also read about crewe offically being a feeder club for us something about us letting them use the accademy and so on, going back a few years now (when we first signed murphy) but pretty sure it wasnt another one of my wierd and wonderfull dreams that usually end up with pamela anderson and a liverpool away kit ....
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:50 pmby JBG
There is no doubt that Australia is potentially one of the strongest football nations in the World, as they are already one of the best sporting nations on the planet, and I think that football will really take off there in the next 10 years.
Yes, they'll play a few games in England, but competitive games alone involve 7 or 8 trips to the southern hemisphere (at least) a season. Going to and returning from a game would involve 3 or 4 days gruelling travelling.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:01 pmby bigmick
It's not THAT gruelling JBG. I've been down-under a few times (arf-arf, the missus is a Kiwi) and I reckon it's overstated. 'Couple of Carlton colds into you and a 'four and twenty' steak pie and your all set for goodnights kip. Right as ninepence in the morning.
Posted:
Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:01 pmby the great one
I know Aresnal is Bevren in Belguim dunno about any others.
Posted:
Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:40 amby ivor_the_injun
For getting youngsters and foreign imports some experience, I'd love to see us link up with Tranmere. I feel a lot more affinity with them than I do with Crewe, certainly.
I also think that a feeder club in Western Europe will be more useful than one in far flung and radically different climes like Oz or South America. With Benitez at the helm, a lower league Spanish team would be most likely, but I actually think that a link via the Swiss league would be well worth a look.
Posted:
Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:58 amby Paul C
Crewe produce more tallent than Tranmere 
