Clubs talent trawling for four-year olds in 'race to bottom'
Written by Simon Austin — February 6, 2017
PREMIER LEAGUE clubs are talent trawling for children as young as four in a ‘race to the bottom’, according to the talent identification manager at the Football Association.
Nick Levett has written a piece questioning the wisdom of clubs searching for younger and younger players.
“What used to be selecting players for excellence programmes at 14 years old has been driven down and down,” Levett writes.
“I hear the justification (if you can call it that) of ‘well, they are looking for nine-year olds, so why don’t we look for eight-year olds’.
“The point is, that argument doesn’t stack up. It’s like the ‘two-minute abs’ for time-pressed people. 'If they are doing two-minute abs, why don’t we do the one-minute abs workout?’
