I think the best way to do it would be this. Category 1 Academies sign double the squad size. So 11 a side would carry around 30. All 30 Players still sign for their full grass roots club, not just their own age. And players play one week for their club and one week for their academy. Category 2 & 3 academies don’t play that many games over a season anyway, they wouldn’t have the budget to fund the coaches for 25-30 player training sessions, but they could just play games every other week over a 44 week per year period.

Academy training nights for each age should be set across the country and have zero flexibility. Clubs then build their training nights around that, this would mean all the talented youngsters get to play more. Players continue to play with their mates. The good players playing at grassroots level get challenged as every other week when the academy players go missing, you may have to step up an age group.

Ive also experienced 3 players end up stuck in contracts at category 3 academies when They were borderline Category 1 players. The category 1 clubs have approached me with regards to all 3 players to see if I could advise the parents to pull them out so they could sign them. When they signed on for the category 3 clubs, the players eyes lit up and they were were scared to lose out and against my advice they signed for the category 3 club. A bigger pool at the category one club would prevent this problem. This would also help massively with the heartbreak of being released as you’re still actually part of your grassroots club.

All the best players wouldn’t go to 1-2 teams, they would stick it out at their original clubs because no manager would want to lose his full team every other week. This would mean every grassroots div1 match would be competitive, And also develop players. Also players could then be training 4-5 times per week which would only help bring them on and bring their opponents on. Imagine the standard of 11 v 11 at academy training when every lad was training 7-8 hours per week, it would be hugely beneficial. Also final point, as you have seen, kids develop at different stages, a world beater at 8 year old can be average at 11. Except on average of 1-2 players in every age group their isn’t much between the average academy player and the elite grassroots player.

I believe academies are producing good players already and the technical ability over the past 5 years has increased 10 fold to bring us closer to the elite countries. We still need better coaches but I really think this system would help bridge the gap and bring more players who have a big chance through.