On McLoughlin, Kenny's Kids on Twitter reckons Caden is bound for Villarreal. Not sure how their youth set-ups compare but Villarreal are certainly a better senior side at present.
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On McLoughlin, Kenny's Kids on Twitter reckons Caden is bound for Villarreal. Not sure how their youth set-ups compare but Villarreal are certainly a better senior side at present.
Move to Villareal confirmed: https://www.balls.ie/football/irish-...larreal-443071Quote:
Originally Posted by Olé Olé
Wow, yet another prolific underage striker!
pictures floating around today of him training with hendrick in Spain.
It says he's lived in Spain from a young age, is he eligible for other countries too?
Jimmy Hendrick ? !Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
U15 player Pearse O'Brien signs for Real Salt Lake's Academy: https://www.nesoccerjournal.com/pear...parts-oakwood/
That's a weird article. They make it seem like there's going to be more and then they just stop.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
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God just further away for 16 year olds to move to get even more homesick and have just as little chance of making a break throughQuote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Both of Stephen Ireland’s kids shared congrats to Heffernan. I wonder was that a connection made in Cork? Can’t imagine it was international. I guess Josh would be a year older than him and Jacob would be younger? Both are considered very promising and so far, Josh has played for England...
Ireland has had a hand in organising the trial apparently - https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-40171877.html
I think I read before that he had started a scouting company, or possibly a football agency?Quote:
It's understood that former Ireland international Stephen Ireland has become involved in trying to open doors to Europe and Heffernan is one of the players he has been putting forward.
You'd have to think there's an opening here for an English club to partner with an Irish side and fund a decent level academy somewhere on the island to get around the Brexit rules. It would need an outlay of a few million to set it all up but the team that did it would have first pick on all the best 16 and 17 year old kids in the country - obviously for parents of kids in the Republic it would be preferable to having to travel to the continent after Brexit and they could stay in the Irish education system but it would potentially attract the best young NI kids as well if it was in Dublin or somewhere along the M1 like Dundalk.
Just a thought. Having 15 and 16 year olds like Heffernan and Zefi heading out to Italy is far from ideal.
Why do you think that? Do you mean as an alternative to Ireland or England or both? With regards to England, obviously there is a language barrier and it is further away than England but the language barrier can be overcome, there is likely to be a lot of lads there that don't speak Italian and the flights will not be an issue I would imagine. In comparison to Ireland, I would assume (happy to be corrected) that the coaching at these Italian clubs is ahead of those at our LOI clubs and the LOI clubs are playing catch up on that front.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
No question the coaching in Italy will be ahead of League of Ireland clubs as things stand. This is why these lads are looking at leaving, it's their best shot of a career in the game.
But countless talented Irish players have failed in the game because they couldn't settle in the UK at a young age, even with the same language and a lot of cultural similarities. It's going to be even worse now that the UK is off limits for under 18s. While some will obviously settle just fine in a new environment in mainland Europe, more players than ever will fail and end up back home at 20 or 21 with no football career prospects and no education qualifications to their name either.
We might have a weak senior team at the moment but we do produce a fair amount of talent overall. I'd say we'd produce even more if there was a realistic route to making it in the game without needing to leave the country at 16.
Heffernan signed his first professional contract with cork city today: https://www.corkcityfc.ie/home/2021/...onal-contract/Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Mentions in the article that Liam Kearney is head of the academy at Cork City, there's a real blast from the past
Surprised he hasn’t signed for one of the Italian clubs, probably one of the top prospects at the club.
I wonder what’s taking so long for Zefi to be announced by Inter (or wherever he ends up goin).
Can someone comment on the recent trend of 16 year olds signing professional contracts with LOI clubs please? (Or maybe they always did this except it was never highlighted or I was ignorant?!) Are clubs doing this to protect their assets and does it permit them to command a higher fee in future or still a developmental fee, and how does age factor in with this fee? And is it a direct result of Brexit with 16 year olds now signing professional contracts with LOI and staying put until 18?
So with Cathal, will the plan be to stay at Cork City until 18 and move to England…so perhaps no Italian offers or even he’s decided the continental pathway isn’t the right one for him at this time?
He's only been legally allowed to sign a contract for a couple of months.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
The U17s league only came in a few years ago, so prior to that you'd really only have had an U19/U20 team at LoI clubs, and the 15-year-olds would have been with the top schoolboy clubs.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy_c12000
But in line with UEFA requirements, all LoI clubs now have teams down to U13, so I presume that's what you're seeing.
How do the contracts work though because im seeing that Zefi is only allowed sign a contract for a couple of months yet you then get players like David Okagbue who played a full season at Stoke last season.
I don't know what age he is but the rules changed on January 1st, 2021, where players had to be 18 before signing a contract there. FIFA would probably prefer to have 18 as the hard and fast rule worldwide but free movement means they're not able to place the same restrictions on people moving between two EU countries.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
Caden McLoughlin was part of the Villareal side that won the regional championship: https://villarrealcf.es/en/news/item...wned-champions
This is my basic understanding. You can sign transfer from one EU country to the other once you turn 16. Different countries have different rules regarding signing pro-deals within the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
UK clubs can't sign EU players till 18, perhaps with the exception of Irish players due to the common travel area. That was certainly unclear.
In the UK, you've got Academy scholarships, which are almost always 2-year commitments, where the player finishes education with the club and plays for the academy. Those are at u17 and u18, culminating with the FA Youth Cup. 3rd year scholars do exist, but they're very rare. Up to u16, players are only allowed play for a team within a certain distance of where they live, so u17 tends to be an age group where clubs shuffle the deck a lot, because they'll lose players to clubs further afield and they can target players from anywhere in the country. Obviously, there's other stuff which is pretty common, where a family are 'encouraged' to move to an area, making them eligible to sign at u16 or younger, but going by the rules that's the change. In terms of how much time is spent training and how seriously things are taken, u17 is really the big change there, partly because of what we said above and partly because partly because about half of an academy side's players will be released after u16 (because basically two teams are morphing into one at academy level, as in, you've got 14s, 15s, 16s, 18s. So you need half your players to progress at that point to have a full squad). Also till recently, you would have had all the EU players arriving at u17, so they'd take up some academy u17 spots.
As an academy player, you can sign a pro-deal once you turn 17. But it's not uncommon for players to progress without signing a pro deal, because they've basically agreed a commitment for another year anyway. Arsenal and City have had players who progressed without a deal. Jadon Sancho refused a contract at 17 and that ultimately led to him leaving for Dortmund.
There are rules regarding that minimum and maximum length of contracts for young players. I remember Gareth Barry (or possibly Lee Hendry but I'm pretty sure Barry) signed a 7 year contract as a teenager, which might have contributed to the change. There used to be a minimum 2 years on a pro deal or a pro deal renewal under 20, but I'm pretty sure that's now gone and it's now 1 year minimum.
This was clarified a few months ago, the exception only applies to Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh, and English players: https://www.the42.ie/irish-football-...89379-Dec2020/Quote:
Originally Posted by elatedscum
There was a bit more to it, Sancho refused to appear at training without guarantees about playing for the first team, so the club decided to sell him.Quote:
Originally Posted by elatedscum
I heard somewhere that a Irish player could potentially sign for an English club if they are located within 100km of their ground or something like that.
Could be another loophole.
I think that only applies if their family moves to the country for non-footballing reasons. So, say a parent gets a job in the university in Liverpool, their child could sign for Liverpool, Everton, or Tranmere. The difficulty is proving that the move was for non-footballing reasons, and not to sign for the club.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
I wonder though, given we have a travel area, could a player’s family freely move to the uk and bypass that ruling in a way that way, in a way another EU citizen couldn’t? Or could I move to live with my London based uncle at 16? There have been a few moves announced which might suggest there’s some form of workaround possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
I think there was even more to it, in that the club forced him to train alone until he signed and then he stopped showing up, which isn’t really how it’s portrayed today.Quote:
There was a bit more to it, Sancho refused to appear at training without guarantees about playing for the first team, so the club decided to sell him.
He also could have moved for next to nothing due to moving abroad and not having signed a pro deal, but Dortmund were happy to pay £8m (a relative bargain) to avoid a long-drawn out legal situation and to get the deal done, where City accused the player, the agent and club of plenty...
That’s true of land borders anyway. Not sure if it’s 50 or 100 but I guess 100. Basically players can’t sign for clubs within another country below 16/18 (EU/non-EU) - but if you live within 100km of a club, you can play for them even if they cross a national border. That’s how Laporte and Griezmann ended up playing for Basque clubs while living in France (although I think griezmann perhaps involved some creative attending of a boarding school or something).Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
The law is basically designed so that if you live right on the border, you’re not disadvantaged because of it and barred from playing for a team half an hour down the road from you, just because they cross a border. Really wasn’t designed for trips across the Irish Sea I don’t think - but perhaps the rule is written in such a way that it applies... I’d assume the fact the distance across the Irish Sea is over 100km makes it all moot
And how about the trend of 16 year olds signing professional contracts with LOI clubs. I know pineapple stu partly answered it with the adoption if the LOI underage leagues. But it seems like a big financial undertaking for LOI clubs for players who play minimally for their senior team (Johnny Kenny aside of course)…so assume it allows them to protect their assets a bit better? If a 16 or 17 year old on a professional contract transfers to Europe or UK (vía one of the loopholes), is it still just a developmental fee or can LOI hold out for worthy transfer amounts?
That’s the thing, let’s say a player is wanted by an English club they could get the parent of a player a job in the city, then after that they can sign the player. I’ve heard that’s a way it can be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by elatedscum
Interview with Kevin Zefi ahead of his move to Inter: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2...a4004f8c3a9dcc
The prevalence of the "I am keeping my options open" internationally is one of the main reasons I care so much less about international football than 10 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
U15s V Montenegro is being stream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5I8_koheRM
Jay McEvoy is the younger brother of Rio McEvoy who was in training camps for both us and NI last year. Has three caps for us at U18s level. Jaden Umeh is the younger brother of U19s player Franco Umeh.
Anyone know more about Ramon Martos from Almeria and how he's eligible for us?
Not sure how he’s eligible but read something in Spanish saying he was very good (possibly playing a level above himself and captaining the side at club level?). Here he is here:
https://www.udalmeriasad.com/en/noti...national-teams
And he was mentioned as our biggest threat in the report of the game against Cyprus u15s.
Haven’t seen any of them play a full game but have heard good things about Grady McDonnell (born in Vancouver), Ade Solanke and Brody Lee from Rovers, Jayden Umeh, Michael Noonan and the back up keeper Luke Cullen.