Can we have our ball back please? Rising inactivity levels in Great Britain s youth and the impact on elite football.

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1 Kenyon, J. and Palmer, C. (2007) Can we have our ball back please? Rising inactivity levels in Great Britain s youth and the impact on elite football. Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies. 1, 1, Can we have our ball back please? Rising inactivity levels in Great Britain s youth and the impact on elite football. James Kenyon and Clive Palmer (Sports Studies, Hope University, Liverpool) Abstract A survey by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) indicated that football is the most popular sport in schools in Great Britain (DCMS, 2004). If this is the case, then there should be little or no problem for football clubs to select quality players from a seemingly growing pool of talent. With this situation in mind the authors set out to discuss the current state of football development in place, in Great Britain by considering the range and types of opportunities available for young people, aged 9 to 19 years old, to play football towards elite level. In recent years the opportunities for young people to play elite football have been modelled on a system of Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD, Balyi, 2004) taken up by the Academies and Centres of Excellence for coaching football. The success of this long-term approach to developing sporting talent will be questioned and contrasted with the concerning rise of inactivity levels of children in Great Britain (BBC Sport, 2005a). Although Team GB have not yet ruled out competing in football at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2012 London Olympics will most likely be the first time that Great Britain has entered a men s football team into an Olympic competition since 1972; after the distinction between professional and amateur footballers was abolished in 1974 (The Football Association, 2004). By looking to this competition, success will be measured by whether Great Britain can achieve a medal. This essay will question whether that success can be attained, given that the talent pool of potential players has alarming indications of rising inactivity levels across Great Britain. Inactivity of children in Great Britain You have to start at a young age. We need sport for the good of our nation. (Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport, speaking to BBC Sport, 2003) The Department of Health (2004) states that the annual cost of physical inactivity in England is 8.2 billion. This figure includes both the costs to the NHS and costs related to the economy, such as absence from work for illnesses related to physical inactivity and obesity. Because of this, the popular view is that increasing physical activity levels in Great Britain will save the NHS millions of pounds in the future. For example, if 10 per cent more people in Great Britain became more active (fitter), the 69

2 Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies 1, 1 country would save 600m annually on its health bill [the NHS] (The Observer, 2006) and that more than 6,000 premature deaths would be prevented each year (DCMS, 2002). A major claim here is that by encouraging the young people of Great Britain to pursue an active and healthy lifestyle they are more likely to carry on this good habit into adulthood (Almond and McGeorge, 1997). To combat rising inactivity levels in Great Britain s youth, the Government was aiming to get 75% of pupils doing two hours sport a week, either in or outside of the curriculum, by 2006 (DCMS, 2002). Despite ever-increasing concerns about child obesity and increased time playing video games (Shafi, 2006), pupils are still playing shockingly low levels of sport in school (BBC Sport, 2005a). In 2005, BBC News reported that only about one-third of schools were meeting that target of 75%. Football opportunities With rising obesity and inactivity levels in children in Great Britain, one can come to the obvious conclusion that there are no longer as many sport-talented children available as was once the case. This considered, rising inactivity levels have a direct impact on the size of the pool of children with talent that could be fully trained into elite footballers. In order to train and transform a talented performer to an elite athlete it is widely accepted that it requires three hours of practice daily for ten years. This is known as the 10,000 hour or ten year rule (Ericsson, 1993; Ericsson and Charness, 1994; Bloom, 1985; Salmela, 1998; all cited in Balyi and Hamilton, 2004). Sports Coach UK (2006) believes that the Long Term Athlete Development Model (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004) will produce a greater number of athletes who are capable of performing at the highest level. Sports Coach UK (2006) also believes that LTAD focuses on maximising player development to encourage life-long commitment to sport, and thus an active lifestyle. For clarity, the Long Term Athlete Development Model that could be applied to football; the Late Specialization Model (Balyi and Hamilton, 2004), has 5 stages of performance development, beginning with the FUNdamental Stage at ages 6-9 ranging to the penultimate stage, The Training to Win Stage at ages 18 and older. A full LTAD system in place for football in Great Britain would seem ideal enough in theory, but the Football Association s Director of Football Development, Trevor Brooking, believes the biggest problem, for now, on the drain of home grown players, is that people who play 11-a-side football at school stop playing after school because there is no natural link between schools and club football (BBC Sport, 2005b). This would mean that if a theoretical LTAD programme was in place, late developers and talented players who may have been missed by Football Academies and Centres of Excellence are forgotten and would be discontinuing their theoretical Long Term 70

3 James Kenyon and Clive Palmer Athlete Development. In reality though, once someone has left school and has not been taken on by a Football Academy or a Centre of Excellence, they no longer play and usually discontinue all physical activity. The discontinuation of physical activity leaves the discussed gap in the pool of footballers available, with talent that could be fully trained into elite athletes. Trevor Brooking also believes that a lack of pitches and poor facilities at a grass roots level are just two more of the factors leading to the drain of home grown players (BBC Sport, 2005b). Football Academies and Centres of Excellence What clearly is a concern at the present, for the FA and those who want to promote the Englishness of the system, is the quantity of players. It must be a concern [if] clubs are taking the short-term solution to problems and turning to players from their youth ranks. (Huw Jennings, the current Premier League s youth development manager, speaking to the Guardian Sport, 2007) Although Centres of Excellence have been in existence for many years, in 1998 the Football Association introduced a rule for all professional clubs that the club had to supply either: a Centre of Excellence or a Football Academy for the youth of the local community. Following the introduction of Football Academies in 1998, it was believed that clubs would have the potential to save millions in transfer fees each year by having a chartered program of excellence for their elite youth players. Although there are no rules on the recruitment of International players, local players can only be recruited within a 90 minute drive of the Centre/Academy. Football Academies are at the centre of The Football Association s Charter for Quality programme. Academies [ ] bring together the best young players to give them top quality coaching, development, education and medical care. (The Football Association, 2002) As will be made apparent, it has been well documented in the media that an increasing amount of Premier League Football clubs are recruiting more youth players from over-seas countries and, consequently, some Premier League managers have been accused of harming the national side by not fielding enough home-grown players (BBC Sport, 2007a). Liam Brady, Arsenal s head of youth development and its academy manager rejects criticisms of the young foreign influx, It s like the pool of players is shrinking all of the time in the British Isles [ ] there s not the amount of players there used to be (The Guardian Sport, 2007). As discussed, increasing levels of inactivity in British children mean that there has been a reduction in the quantity of talented British players. This has had a direct impact on the number of home-grown players good enough for selection by Football Academies and Football Centres of Excellence. As a result of this, some high profile Premier League Club managers and Football League managers plainly insist that the Academy and Centre of Excellence 71

4 Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies 1, 1 system isn t working well enough for British youth (BBC Sport, 2007a; BBC Sport, 2007b; BBC Sport, 2007c; The Guardian Sport, 2007). The success of a theoretical Long Term Athlete Development programme in Centres of Excellence and Football Academies would be dependent on whether the FUNdamental Stage (Stage 1 at ages 6-9) had been coached effectively prior to the player being selected by the Centre/Academy. As already discussed, the best and most qualified coaches are encouraged to work with elite athletes at the Centres of Excellence and Football Academies or Football Association Clubs (i.e. The Premiership, Championship and the rest of the leagues). With this being the case, it means that there is an obvious lack of top-class coaches who can lay the foundations at the FUNdamental Stage (grass-roots) to produce young footballers capable of being selected by Centres of Excellence and Football Academies and trained into elite footballers. Since the LTAD FUNdamental Stage emphasis is on the overall development of the young player s physical capacities, fundamental movement skills and the ABC s of athleticism (agility, balance, co-ordination and speed) (Balyi, 2001), the potential of a whether a young athlete could be trained effectively into an elite footballer would be very much dependent on whether this stage was coached properly. Therefore the long term athlete or player development plan may risk failure at its earliest stage London Olympics Football is our national sport and it is really good news that there will be Team GB sides in (Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport, speaking to The Times, 2005) The criterion for the eligibility of football players taking part in the Olympics, established by FIFA, has changed several times over the years. Professional footballers may now take part but Olympic football teams are now essentially Under-23 teams (The Football Association, 2004). This being the case, children who are of GCSE/school leaver age now, will be eligible to participate in the 2012 London Olympics. As discussed, the main problem at present is the drain of home grown players caused by people who play 11-a-side football at school refrain from playing post-school years because there is no continuity between schools and club football (BBC Sport, 2005b). This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Academies and Centres of Excellence are recruiting more and more players from overseas; the quantity of world class British football players is declining. Knowing these trends, it is hard to believe that Great Britain will be capable of winning a medal in football at the 2012 London Olympics. The Way Forward: Some Suggestions Apart from the obvious health benefits of increasing activity levels in Great Britain s 72

5 James Kenyon and Clive Palmer youth and the impact on the cost to the national economy, it could be predicted that, with increasing levels of physical activity, Great Britain will begin produce higher quantities of young athletes capable of being trained to an elite level. Extra funding needs to be ploughed into Academies and Centres of Excellence outside of Premiership football. An average Centre of Excellence outside of the Premiership can cost as much as 1m a year to run, whilst the average cost of a Premiership academy is almost 2m a year. This a huge expense for smaller football clubs, particularly when the maximum grant for Football League clubs is 138,000 (BBC News, 2007c). Apart from extra funding in Academies and Centres of Excellence outside of the Premiership, the Football Association needs to address the issue of drop out rates post-school years and create a successful infrastructure to accommodate footballers who are not picked up by Academies and Centres of Excellence. Conclusion Earle, (2001) states that Long Term Athlete Development is not a high performance [elite] model, but rather an athlete retention model. He states that by increasing each young person s success rate, by keeping more young people playing sport longer, there will be a larger pool of potential talent to fish in. But given that the quality of that pool of potential talent would be very much dependent on the quality of coaching young people receive at the FUNdamental and Learning to Train stages and based on the understanding that the top coaches work predominantly at the top levels of the sport, one can make the assumption that young people in the UK may never reach their full potential in some sports. Earle s lecture indicated that the Football Association are in the final draft stage of drawing up an actual, physical Long Term Athlete Development plan for football in the UK. So, some key questions for them now is what and who will be the focus of this Long Term Athlete Development model and can they sustain the financial investment in the long-term, for what may turn out to be limited return or success? One would hope that it would be developing the grass roots game. This will, in turn, address the issue athlete/player retention, thus creating larger pool of potential talent. Of course, only time will tell. References Almond, L. and McGeorge, S. (1997) Young people and physical activity: a literature review. Health Education Authority, London. Balyi I. (2001) Sport System Building and Long-term Athlete Development in British Columbia [online]. Available at: (Accessed 26th February 2007). Balyi, I. and Hamilton, A. (2004) Long Term Athlete Development; trainability in childhood and adolescence, windows of opportunity, optimal trainability [online]. Available at: 73

6 Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies 1, 1 (Accessed 15th February 2007). BBC Sport. (2003) Wrong culture for sporting success [online]. Available at: co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/sport_summit/ stm (Accessed 25 th March 2003). BBC Sport. (2005a) Is school sport failing our children? [online]. Available at: bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/sport_summit/ stm (Accessed 14 th March 2005). BBC Sport. (2005b) Grass roots issue worry with Brooking [online]. Available at: bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/ stm (Accessed 16 th March 2005). BBC Sport. (2007a) Ferguson attacks academy system. [online]. Available at: co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/ stm [Accessed 16th February 2007]. BBC Sport. (2007b) Football factory or money pit? [online]. Available at: co.uk/sport1/hi/football/ stm (Accessed 8th February 2007). BBC Sport. (2007c) Crewe boss voices academy fears [online]. Available at: co.uk/sport1/hi/football/ stm (Accessed 8 th February 2007). Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2002) Game Plan: a strategy for delivering Government s sport & physical activity objectives [online]. Available at: org/bn1.03_game_plan.pdf (Accessed 10 th February 2007). Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2004) Partnerships put school sport in new league [online]. Available at: archive_2004/dcms021_04.htm (Accessed 4 th March 2004). Department of Health, The. (2004) At least five a week: Evidence on the impact of physical activity and its relationship to health. [online]. Available at: Root/04/08/09/84/ pdf [Accessed 29 th April 2004]. Earle, C. (2001) You ve got me now keep me: An introduction to the principles and practice of Long Term Athlete Development. Presentation - Loughborough University [online]. Available at: (Accessed 16th February 2007). Football Association, The. (2002) Centres of Excellence [online]. Available at: thefa.com/grassrootsnew/player/postings/2002/05/centresofexcellence [Accessed 8th May 2002]. Football Association, The. (2002) Football Academies [online]. Available at: thefa.com/grassrootsnew/player/postings/2002/05/10895.htm (Accessed 8th May 2002). Football Association, The. (2004) Britain s Olympic past [online]. Available at: thefa.com/thefa/newsfromthefa/postings/2004/03/wembley_olympic_bid.htm (Accessed 3 rd March 2004). Guardian Sport, The. (2007) Academies seek pupils to graduate with honours. Page 5. Published 19 th January Shafi, G. (2006) Burger babies: the future is fat. Student British Medical Journal. 14, Sports Coach UK. (2006) Introduction: What is LTAD? [online]. Available at: sportscoachuk.org/improve+your+coaching/long-term+athlete+development (Accessed 2 nd October 2006). 74

7 James Kenyon and Clive Palmer Times Online, The. (2005) Britain looks to Beijing after Scotland s snub to 2012 Games [online]. Available at: (Accessed 12 th November 2005). JQRSS: Acknowledgement Footnote 1. Since the mentoring process began, I feel I have improved my writing style. Whilst being prone at times to waffle, the mentoring and review process has helped me to state what needs to be said in a more succinct way. I have greater confidence in arguing points critically without being cynical and it has definitely given me a better belief in my own ability as an academic writer. 2. James is 25 years old; a mature student in the first year of his B.Sc. Sports Development and Sport Studies Degree. James has a deep passion for sport, whether it be playing, coaching or officiating and is especially fanatical about his football. James has coached in a number of sports (predominantly swimming, football and hockey) working with young people and children mainly from inner-city areas of Liverpool. James is, as yet, undecided as to whether he would like to stay in University to engage in a post-grad course with the idea of lecturing himself eventually or moving into sports development once he has completed his degree. 3. Dear reader, if this article has stimulated your thoughts and you wish to find out more about this topic the authors can be contacted on: James Kenyon: @ hope.ac.uk and Clive Palmer: palmerc@hope.ac.uk. 75

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