The standard of football between the two divisions has improved vastly over the last several seasons and this season sees the quality of the Championship as good as it ever has been. In defence of these players, there is of course a higher standard of football despite the dip in margin. For example, strikers are up against better teams and while they might have got 10 chances per game in the Football League, they may only get the odd few in the Prem.

So what unfortunate ten make my top ten list of players who are Championship rather than Premier League quality? Find out below…

Click on Routledge below to see the Top TEN

The narrow minded attitude of the BBC has sparked plenty of criticism over the past month or so as two Football League Shows over the Christmas period were cancelled, suggesting that the show could be scrapped altogether. Rumours were flying about on social networking sites but it is still unclear whether the 72 football league clubs’ supporters will be able to watch action from their teams.

The BBC claim it is in negotiations over whether to recommission the Football League Show, which is in the final year of a three-year contract, but whether they are successful is still to be seen as the Premier League is once again showing its distance between the rest.

A BBC spokeswoman made a statement on the recent cancellations: “The Boxing Day and 2^nd January fixtures are outside our contractual obligations,” she said. “Many factors come into play when planning the busy Christmas schedules and we were unable to schedule a programme for New Year’s Eve. To address the shortfall, we will be doing an additional programme later in the season.”

Football League Show host Manish Bhasin attempted to squash any rumours that his show will be no longer after this season is finished.

“Budget decision I’m afraid … but all the goals will be online on the BBC Football website,” he said on Twitter “The FLS has NOT been scrapped! It’s on till May and who knows maybe even longer … but …”

Whatever the decision come May, the nonchalant decision to not show crucial fixtures for waiting fans is a clear sign that the BBC have more interest in the Premier League than ever. The gap between the top two divisions in England is widely thought not to be a great deal in footballing terms, but financially and in people’s priorities it is now huge.

The funding for the Championship sides is decreasing consistently and clubs falling from the top division are finding it harder and harder to compete at the lower level due to financial restrictions and a shock to the system.

It is staggering to think that the Championship, League One and League Two clubs get so little TV time but yet I am confident that West Ham, Birmingham City, Southampton and possibly Cardiff City would not look out of place in the declining Premier League this season. The parachute payments are a ticking time bomb for clubs such as Blackpool who will take a long time to match the heights of Premier League football last season and without excellent owners will have that debt for a long time.

The Football League Show will return this weekend even though the BBC claim that this weeks’ Carling Cup games were more important than the Football League in recent weeks, but the timing of the show usually passes midnight and not all supporters will be able to watch it which once again shows priorities that are not welcomed in modern day football. I am interested in all levels of English football, not just the top 20 teams so why should I not be able to watch the rest because the BBC feel it is less important.

Do you think the Football League Show is worth keeping on? Let me know on Twitter: @Brad_Pinard

Football fans always love an underdog and this is when you are certain to find one. This year’s competition created some great games, non-league Tamworth went to Everton and Swindon Town entertained Wigan Athletic, Birmingham City played Wolves and there was also the small matter of a Manchester derby between the two best sides in the country.

These games should more than whet the appetite for neutrals and supporters but it didn’t appear so. The West Midlands derby kicked off the round but the St Andrew’s attendance was only 14,500, Peterborough’s game against Sunderland on Sunday afternoon only brought in 8,900 fans, less than their average league attendance, and most surprisingly, there were big empty spaces at the Etihad Stadium yesterday.

It is a major disappointment to see low attendances for such a traditional footballing weekend and the reason for this problem is TV. Since the beautiful game has been broadcast on the box we have all gathered round and watched the big games. For previous generations the FA Cup final was a monumental family occasion with everybody gathering around to watch the match. In recent years the amount of football that is broadcast into our living rooms has rocketed and now there are multiple games every weekend for our enjoyment. We can watch the Premier League, Football League, European football, cup football, international matches and pretty much any other football we want. For the avid supporter it is fantastic because they can watch any game they want from the comfort of their own home on a TV that they have already paid for.

The only problem is that it is killing the game.

Attendances have been falling for a while and for Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers their stadiums seem half empty at most home games. That may be down to their league position but it is the same for so many clubs now. Everton’s average crowd so far this season is 2,500 less than it was last campaign as are Aston Villa and Wolves. In the Championship, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City are suffering a similar drop along with promotion chasing Cardiff City and more.

With Sky, ESPN and other networks showing us so many games attendances are slipping because a lot of people don’t see why they should buy a ticket to watch a match they can see at home. And it is a fair point but without ticket revenue clubs don’t have the money to continue the way they are.

Clubs rely on fans coming to the games, buying a programme, having something to eat and drink and visiting the club shop. If they aren’t filling the ground to capacity every other week then the fans that do attend will have to start paying more for their ticket so eventually they won’t go either and with no money coming into the club from the supporters it will only spell out trouble for the team.

But it isn’t just attendances that are slipping thanks to the TV revolution, they have upset other facets of the game with equal measure. Thanks to the billions spent on TV rights by the BBC, Sky, ESPN and ITV, it has turned football into a business. While that is not to say that people involved in the game are only interested in money, it now controls so many things.

With all the money involved in the game it is always likely to attract money-grabbers. We all know the names of so-called super agents like Pini Zahavi who make their money by being an advisor in transfer negotiations and the despised ‘advisor’ Kia Joorabchian is a businessman who bought the rights to certain players so that he could make his money from football.

It is this same desire to make money that has also created corruption in football. Bungs and bribery are despicable acts that have tarnished the game in recent years and it is highly unlikely that this would have happened if their wasn’t the potential to make so much money.

Bank balances have swelled dramatically since the formation of the Premier League and that has meant that transfer fees and wages have too. When the league was formed in 1992, nobody would have expected to see £50 million transfer fees and wages in excess of £200,000 a week. Football has always been a working-class sport where the players would often be seen drinking in the same pubs as the fans and while they were still paid more than the average wage, it wasn’t the chasm that it is now. In the 1984-85 season, First Division players earned an average of £480 a week compared to the average 3192 earned by the ‘man-on-the-street’. But by the 2009-10 campaign, the average Premier League player took home an eye-watering £22,353 a week, virtually an average annual wage.

These astronomical sums of money have put the players out of touch with the supporters and it has led to the anger that the players receive when they do stupid things off the pitch or when they put in less than expected amounts of effort on the pitch.

We have also seen an influx of foreign talent come to England over the past 20 years. This is because every country in the world can watch the Premier League, you can compete in the best competitions in the world and there is a big pay day on offer by coming here. It has meant that some of the best players on the planet have graced our game and brought joy to us all with their ability. It has set us apart from so many leagues because of our diversity but it is hard to ignore that it has stifled so many young English players in that time. Because the clubs have the transfer budget to buy already established players from other clubs they have prevented the progression of their academy players and it has let them fall by the wayside when a chance in the team could have produced a hot prospect for the future.

Having football on the TV has brought so many good things to football and it has made the Premier League one of the most watched sporting competitions in the world but I can’t help in thinking it has created a problem that may not be easy to solve.

What affect do you think TV has had on football? Comment below or tell me on Twitter @jrobbins1991.

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As early as the 1980’s he was winning trophies. Guiding IFK Goteborg to the Swedish Cup in his first full season and completing a league, cup and UEFA Cup treble in 1982. He continued his success at Benfica, winning two titles and the Portuguese Cup in two seasons and during four years at Lazio he won Coppa Italia and Italian Super Cup twice, the Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and Serie A, only Lazio’s second Scudetto.

He has managed at some of the biggest clubs and his reign as England manager was consistent and competitive, a vast improvement on the current set up. But in recent years the cool, calm and collected Swede looks to have become complacent and laissez-faire to the game.

Since June 2008 he has been with four clubs as manager or director of football and has been relatively unsuccessful. And after being sacked by moneybags Leicester City following an unimpressive start for the promotion favourites, Sven’s passion for the game must come into question.

The start of this decline in interest can be pinpointed to Spring 2008 when former City owner Thaksin Shinawatra confirmed he would be getting rid of Eriksson after just one season at the club due to some poor results. Despite protests from the fans and the prospect of a strike, the former Thai PM could not be dissuaded and following an 8-1 humiliation by Middlesbrough, the Swede departed the club, even though he had beaten Manchester United twice that season and guided City to their biggest Premier League points total at that time.

With that decision, he seemed to lose all interest in the game and from then appeared to give up on the tradition of trophy chasing in football. After that apparent lack of respect from City chiefs, Sven has seemingly been on a mission to create a footballing legacy, taking on projects rather than management jobs.

His first port of call was the Mexico national team, who he hoped to turn into a North American superpower, where he battled rumours of division within the squad and the wrath of the fans who were upset by his appointment. In seven competitive matches he won only once, with a draw against Canada being followed by losses to Jamaica, USA and Honduras on two occasions which ultimately cost him his job after less than a year.

Even more strangely, after a “takeover” of League Two Notts County in the summer of 2009 by Munto Finance, the Swede arrived through the doors of Meadow Lane as Director of Football. He, like everybody else, had been made to believe that the world’s oldest League club had received major investment that would see them rise from the football league’s bottom tier to the Premiership in five years and wanted to be at the head of that process. Although they were promoted at the end of the season, Sven had resigned in February 2010 after it emerged that the club had large debts and an unpaid tax bill because the owners were not what they had claimed.

After waiving the right to a multi-million pound pay off to secure the Magpie’s future, he was appointed manager of the Ivory Coast for the 2010 World Cup. With stars like Didier Drogba and the Toure brothers, Sven was hoping to make Pele’s comments come true and get an African team to the World Cup semi-finals for the first time. This has probably been his biggest success in recent years, having brought organisation and balance to a team full of flair and had it not been for being grouped with Brazil and Portugal his side may well have progressed.

Finally, last October he was brought to the Walkers Stadium by Thai-led consortium Asian Football Investments, with the task of saving them from relegation and turning them into title winners. He was able to complete the first part of the plan, guiding them to the brink of the play-offs before falling away at the end of the season. But having spent huge sums of money over the summer on Matt Mills and Jermaine Beckford among others, he was unable to live up to expectations and left with the club 13th in the table.

These recent jobs make Sven look like an owner of the game Football Manager, trying to take his team from underdogs to the dominant force. But so far, all his efforts have been in vain.

It is a sorry sight that somebody so successful is now looking for jobs outside the top flight to reignite his interest in the game.

Is Sven bored or do you have another opinion? Leave a comment or follow me on Twitter @jrobbins1991.

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The King Power Stadium outfit sacked Sven Goran Eriksson earlier this week after an inconsistent start to the campaign, and the Northern Irish manager has been one of the frontrunners for the position according to the bookmakers.

Despite a highly successful period with the club between 1995 and 2000, and the fact that he has been out of work since leaving Aston Villa back in August 2010, the coach has ruled out a return to his former side according to The Guardian.

This means that the ambitious outfit will have to look elsewhere for a new man to take control, with Mark Hughes and Alan Shearer other names that have been thrown into the melting pot.

“I have to open my mind now. It is not just what the news or fans want,” Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn, the Leicester vice-chairman, has stated.

“I have to listen to everyone and [will] make a decision very carefully. The next manager should be taking us to the Premier League and I think he has to know this league because it’s very tough, very tight,” he concluded.

Leicester currently sit in 14th position in The Championship table, and face a difficult trip to take on West Ham at Upton Park on Saturday.

By Gareth McKnight

The former England head coach was appointed as The Foxes’ manager back in October 2010, and was given funding to sign a raft of new players over the summer.

With the King Power Stadium outfit’s ambitions of reaching the Premier League this term, the current position of 13th was deemed unsatisfactory and they will now look for a new man to lead the team going forward.

City have only won five of their 13 games so far this campaign, and are eight points behind division leaders Southampton; A 3-0 home defeat to Millwall last weekend was the final nail in the Swede’s coffin.

“Leicester City football club has confirmed today that, by mutual agreement, Sven Goran Eriksson has ceased to be the first-team manager, with immediate effect,” a statement on the club’s official website read.

“The process of recruiting a new permanent manager will begin in the coming days. There will be no further comments from the club or any comment on the recruitment process until an appointment is made,” it concluded.

Frontrunners for the position are former Leicester boss Martin O’Neill, Mark Hughes and Alan Shearer.

By Gareth McKnight

This new deal has reduced the amount paid to Football League clubs from £88 million to £65 million. As part of this agreement, clubs relegated from the Premier League will now receive £48 million in parachute payments over four years instead of £16 million a year for two years as they received previously.

Looking back, the concerns of the lower league clubs at the time were understandable. Already this season we have witnessed the financial clout of the likes of Leicester City who have spent vast amounts of money in comparison to some of the smaller teams in the teams like Coventry and Watford, who both have financial problems.

The fact that a team relegated from the Premier League now receives £48 million while a team going in the opposite direction to League One will actually lose £3.7 million shows the sort of disparity that exists between the two leagues. This makes it extremely difficult for the relegated team to bounce straight back unless they actually have the financial aptitude as Norwich and Leicester showed. It will be even harder for the smaller teams to get back into the Championship but much easier for teams coming down to get out it.

The difference in central payments in the Championship and League One is already substantial. The television and solidarity payments that come into the football league are split 80 per cent Championship, 12 per cent League One and eight per cent League Two. Although the money the other two leagues receive has increased, it is nothing in comparison with that of the Championship.

Every year, we hear about clubs spending beyond their means to remain in or try to reach the promise land of the Premier League before seeing them go into financial trouble when this does not materialise. What is the Premier League doing to prevent this situation apart from giving them even more of an incentive to spend with the fall-back of parachute payments?

How long will it be until there are two separate tiers of English football, where promotion and relegation does not exist? We seem to be going more and more towards the American example of the franchise system where Television and money completely dominate the game.

It would seem that Premier League Two is not too far off.

This could lead to the death of the traditional English football clubs and the game outside of the top two divisions. The loyal fans would probably remain at these clubs but would the money still come in from the richer elite leagues? If this was divide was to take place, the long-term future of lower league football clubs outside the top two divisions would be very bleak indeed.

Follow me on twitter @aidanmccartney for more thoughts and views about the beautiful game.

For the first time in a number of years, the optimism around Filbert Way during pre-season was at a high, there was a tangible atmosphere in the air and the whole city seemed to be buzzing in anticipation of the big kick off.

Following the hard-fought one nil victory against our M69 rivals Coventry at the Ricoh, followed by the emphatic four one victory against Rotherham United in the League Cup (thanks to a stunning hat-trick by debutant Jeff Schlupp), the optimism was going into overdrive ahead of the first home fixture of the season; Reading FC.

Disappointingly, what followed was 90 plus minutes of good (in parts) individual performances; the likes of Schmeichel between the sticks, Nugent up-front, Yuki Abe and Sol Bamba in midfield and defence respectively stand out; but a poor team performance which was epitomised by captain Matt Mills’ poor performance against his old club.

Boos were to be expected from the away fans every time Mills’ got the ball (as were the boos when Jamie ‘Afro’ Archer took to the pitch at half-time to sing), but hearing sections of the home support boo at full time was, in some respects, heart wrenching, especially after only our first home game.

I was in with the twenty-odd thousand at the King Power Stadium for the Reading game, and whilst the performance wasn’t what I was expecting from us; I could see the positives; players showed passion, they tried to change the game when they could, and Sven also made tactical changes in the hope of us getting something from the game; but it wasn’t to be, much to the pleasure of Leeds fans on Twitter (although I’m unsure why they’re so pleased considering until mid-week they hadn’t picked up a point in the league) and our dear friends Nottingham Forest (again, they’re not setting the league alight).

Another positive was that we only had to wait until Wednesday to make amends, as we welcomed Bristol City and the striker we’ve been pursuing all summer, Nicky Maynard.

This last positive is one which in hindsight isn’t that positive. After all, even if you weren’t that into football, you could have wrote the script. The striker we’ve been bidding for throughout pre-season would score against us; and as was the case, four minutes into the game, with a nicely taken free-kick (showing us what we’re missing I think!).

Following the early goal, there were glimmers of hope, Lloyd Dyer looked hungry for it in his first start of the season, Andy King put in a good performance after taking over the midfield role from Yuki Abe; whilst Bamba and Sean St Ledger looked steady at the back.

However, for the second game in a row boos echoed around the stadium, this time at half-time and more in the direction of the poor refereeing than the players; although I’m not naive enough to think that the players weren’t partly at fault.

In the second half things started to pick up and when David Nugent bagged his first for the season to equalise, you could forgive us Foxes for believing that we may just get something out of the game, but it wasn’t to be. Once again, that man Maynard broke clean through on goal after a terrible mistake by St Ledger, and slotted the ball into the net to send Leicester crashing to our second home defeat of the season.

It doesn’t matter how much money we’ve already thrown at the team, it’s clear we’re still missing two vital pieces of the jigsaw.

1)  A second striker – is Martyn Waghorn the answer from the bench, I’m not sure; but with Steve Howard going out on loan shortly and Yann Kermorgant being told to find another club, it still leaves us short.

2)  Sven’s best eleven – the man himself said in the local paper before Bristol that he wasn’t sure of his best eleven or whether he ever would be. Whilst I can respect him for being so honest, and I understand the large squad does provide a selection headache, I think it’s important that Sven quickly settles on a regular starting eleven after all, a frequently changed side isn’t going to help the “gelling” process.

Also, can anyone answer the last time we did start the same eleven in two consecutive games?

The season is too young for fans to be throwing their toys out of the pram and saying that we’ve already blown it. Opposition fans may gloat via social media, but come May we’ll see who is laughing then!

Left with no matches to report on, and out of ideas on how to re-spin Cesc Fabregas transfer news, they wrote instead on the horror of not being able to attend matches. Replete with a picture of him looking suitably disgusted, Henry Winter was FORCED to pay £25 to watch Nottingham Forest play, and the sporting world held its breath.

Winter and others (such as Sam Wallace at the Independent), argued that this was bad news for all fans of football. Winter argued that “newspapers, whether in print, online or via Twitter, keep fanning the flames of supporters’ interest in clubs.”

“On Sunday morning they will turn to their newspapers for a neutral’s verdict to find an absence of match reports.

“…the report is part of the match-day experience, fans’ reading up on the game, agreeing or disagreeing. I could spend an hour or more a day dealing with tweets, emails and letters sparked by a report of the previous night’s match.”

Sam Wallace said:

“But without us, and the other members of our dysfunctional press family, who is left? The answer is, the clubs’ own media. I have nothing against the website and TV personnel of our clubs, many of whom started life on our side of the fence and are very capable journalists. But are we sure the clubs are going to strive to give us the real, inside, uncomfortable story on their organisations?”

“…..I fear that my industry is getting elbowed out of the way by certain wealthy clubs who dislike not being in total control. I fear that some of these young men and women may end up in a ghastly PR-version of journalism where their questions are restricted.”

“…..I do not believe any football fan thinks that the clubs’ curtailing of press freedom is something to be celebrated.”

Thankfully a deal was struck just in time for the start of the Premier League, a brand that cannot be damaged at any time, or else the world would shift on its axis.

And this was good news for all concerned. Yes?

As already mentioned, when the ban kicked in it covered the Championship and below. But for fans of non-Premier league teams, the question is this? Was there a huge chasm in your life last weekend, a sense that something was missing, that you weren’t as up-to-date and educated with the goings-on of your football team? Or was it business as usual? Probably the latter.

When I was very young, before the days of Premiership football, live steaming, Super Sundays and message boards, I relied on newspaper match reports. Their words shaped much of how I thought about teams and players. Only when I became a regular attendee did I realised what drivel was being written.

Ok, not drivel – but I realised that people were seeing games very differently to how I was, and the match reports were nothing more than opinion pieces much of the time. Many a time you can watch a match with a friend and see things in a totally different way. Your man of the match is someone your friend thought was terrible. Even with 100 slow-mos and multiple angles you’ll still get wildly different opinions on whether an incident was a penalty, or a red card or a dive.

The most reliable of match reports was often the Football Pink, because it was a match report that simply reported what had happened, rather than trying to crowbar in a particular angle or agenda, and without some sub-editor’s misleading headline. On the downside, it did have a tendency to suddenly end after 67 minutes.

In the modern world of access-all-areas, how much do we need match reports? I never read them as one way or the other I will have seen the match, and so don’t need someone else to summarise it for me, but that’s just a personal choice. Sunday papers are known to sell better during the football season, so it seems their coverage is important to many. You may have seen a match, but when your new signing has scored a hat trick on his debut, you may want to read every match report possible. But if you support a small, lower-league club, there will be little of interest in  antional newspaper anyway.

But Winter’s theory that fans’ interests in their clubs is kept burning brightly by the press is laughable in the extreme. I, like millions of others, have supported my team for decades, and I managed to do it just fine without having to read newspapers to gee me up.

The problem journalists have is that their reputation is besmirched by the minority. Fans have become tired by lies, false rumours, sensationalizing of minor events, and perceived agendas and injustices. This used to be the style of the tabloids alone, but is is depressing how many broadsheet reporters have been reduced to spreading tittle-tattle and speculation. In the world of 24-hour news, there is not enough proper news to go around. When under 20% of transfer rumours turn out to be true, then it is hard to believe anything you read.

According to journalists, Wesley Sneijder has joined Manchester United five times, the first time being over a month ago. He has joined Manchester City twice. He has snubbed City twice too, United have ended their interest three times, terms have been agreed four times, and a fee agreed five times. Nasri signed for Manchester City three weeks ago, but then he was staying at Arsenal, this all coming after United had closed in on his signing, then he has since signed again four times, and the latest news is he will sign again once more later this week (for City).

Sam Wallace is probably right in saying the recent dispute is fuelled partly by the desire of clubs to have more control on the release of information, and more power in deciding what stays behind closed doors. The new tradition of players to tweet information will only have increased their paranoia. But the newspapers do not help themselves by writing critically of clubs – often it is deserved of course, but it is no surprise trust breaks down with clubs.

And journalists alone do not have access to breaking news. Twitter will break any story instantly, with or without journalists, and will spread malicious rumours in much the same way. The age of instant news has also put great doubt over the newspapers themselves. Exclusives are no longer the domain of the morning paper, as by then most people will already know the story. Add to this that agents and the truthful “in-the-knowers” can keep fans up to date with transfer stories, and that plenty of normal fans have an inside line to clubs, and what are reporters providing that’s unique? What’s more, quality bloggers like the Swiss Ramble have no constraints on space, and no deadlines.

Even Joey Barton, in a week of tweeting Nietzsche, the musings of Wittgenstein and calling Brian Woolnough a nugget, found time to say that the press won’t exist in ten years’ time. Wishful thinking on his behalf, but you can see the logic of his point.

What football journalists do have is contacts and access to areas we normal fans don’t (Old Trafford excepted). They get interviews with players and managers, get briefed on stories and get into press conferences. They have plenty of worth in what they can tell us. With experience comes relationships with those in the game, which bring sinsight and information that might not otherwise be known.
And many write excellently of course, such as Martin Samuel, Daniel Taylor or the financial investigations of David Conn. Quality football “writers” are plentiful (see also Jonathan Wilson). But this is more about the need for reporters rather than writers.

Times have changed, and the way news is reported has entered a new era that has made many old methods redundant. Newspapers have faced difficult times for decades, and the football journalists are no different, as they are no longer the sole bearers of news. Increasingly they know that times have changed, and have looked to branch out, be it appearing on radio shows, podcasts, or nibbling on a croissant on the Sunday Supplement panel. There will always be a role for sports reporting in newspapers in this country, but in future, it may well be less about exclusives and more about fulfilling a much broader media role. The competiiton for them is now huge, but they still have a vital role to play.

An exciting new era for youth football begins this evening, with the Next Gen series kicking off. It is an international tournament, with 16 of the worlds best clubs showcasing their stars of the future in an exciting knockout competition. The likes of Liverpool, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Manchester City, and Celtic are all featuring in the inaugural challenging 6 month international competition. In light of the competition, should the FA look to set up an elite Premier League for the academy sides rather than the regional Premier Academy Leagues which currently exist?

Next Gen is hailed as the new era in competitive football, providing competition on a level that isn’t seen through the regional Premier Leagues. Players will be able to test themselves against world class opposition players trained and nurtured by the best sides in Europe, which can only be of benefit for youth development in this country. It’s a unique opportunity for youth players to experience all aspects of a competitive, large international tournament, including adapting to an unfamiliar style of play, prolonged periods of travel and two match weeks, which are more likely to help them transition into the first team, than the current Premier Academy Leagues, with its lack of competitiveness, as well as its constraints and restrictions.

Unlike playing in the reserves or the Premier Academy League, Next Gen will stretch players, and this is likely to improve their play. Many promising young academy graduates haven’t been provided with enough consistent high quality challenges in the regional leagues, so it could help more to reach senior levels, but more needs to be done on the domestic front to improve the standards of youth football.

Aside from the FA Youth Cup, English youngsters don’t really have enough competitive games, in order for them to frequently test themselves. The Premier Academy League is made up of 40 clubs currently split into four regional leagues, 2 southern and 2 northern, meaning the best sides may only play each other once over the season or not at all, this format lacks that competitive edge for players to be able to benefit from it. Youth football in this country has been stagnant, and now is the time for long overdue progressive ideas to make the difference.

Should the FA do away with the regional leagues and set up one elite Premier Academy League for the best academy’s in the country? It would perhaps provide a greater competitive edge, if there was one elite league and the matches week in week out were of a higher standard. If the best academy’s are playing against similar opposition, then this is likely to increase competitiveness and standards. Playing against similar level opposition on a consistent basis is likely to improve the youth development in this country.

However, there are some problems associated with making a single elite Premier Academy League. It is likely to widen the gulf between the Premier League elite teams and the rest. This could pose a big problem to the smaller academies, with restrictions and constraints on travel and rules lifted, they could find themselves forced out of being able to compete on that level with the cash rich Premier League sides. It could potentially go the other way and kill youth development in the country with smaller clubs in different regions missing out, and subsequently the talent in the local area slipping through the net. Academies could also become more elitist, and it could encourage young players to join bigger clubs, with clubs like Crewe, Huddersfield, and Mk Dons missing out. However, small the academy, they serve to fulfil the potential of local talent around the community, so to wipe this out would be a travesty.