Ian Mawell Q&A: Under-21s quotas, agents, why reserve football vital with '4 channels' analogy
SFA chief executive has his say after youth football conference in St Andrews
On Friday, the Scottish Football Association proposed a series of changes to Scottish football to improve the number of minutes being given to native under-21 players.
All 42 senior Scottish football club gathered at the Made In Scotland conference in St Andrews on Friday and were urged to adopt a collective cultural and mindset shift from boardroom-level downwards to remove the fear of placing their faith in young players.
Twenty First Group, a London-based data-led sports advisory group, were commissioned by the Scottish Football Association to carry out an independent analysis on player trading by Scottish clubs in comparison to those in similar-sized football nations such as Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
The findings were bleak from a Scottish perspective, with the overriding conclusion that Premiership clubs are being irrational and abnormal by not providing a genuine pathway to the first team for their academy players.
Of the countries mentioned, 67 per cent of Portuguese clubs’ core revenue in 2024 came from selling on homegrown players; by contrast, that figure was just 17 per cent for Scottish top-flight clubs. It is believed that Scottish clubs are leaving at least £40million on the table annually by failing to give first-team opportunities to homegrown young players
It is proposed that an average of 60 minutes per game across the season (six per cent of available minutes) in all four SPFL leagues are played by under-21 Scotland-eligible players and that two such players start in all Scottish Cup and Premier Sports Cup matches, with one on the pitch at all times.
The Scottish FA will make £1m available to pay a three-figure fee to clubs for each under-21 Scotland-eligible player who plays 60 minutes or more in a league match. For any Premiership clubs not meeting the minutes threshold, there will be a 10 per cent deduction in final placing prize money, redistributed among clubs who have achieved the target.
The proposals will be voted on at the SFA general meeting in October and the SPFL’s AGM in November. If approved, the new rules will come into play for the start of next season.
Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell sat down with The Scotsman and other media outlets to discuss the plans and where Scottish football is right now with its academies.
Q: How close do think you are to getting this approved?
"There was an understanding and an appreciation in the room that we're not making any of this up. Everybody knows the situation we're in. Every club, if they're honest with themselves, will look and go, 'can we do more?' Yes. The Scottish FA need to look at themselves and go, 'can we do more'? And the league, the players, everybody involved in Scottish football. There's a lot of good stuff that happens in the game, and we can't ignore that. We shouldn't ignore that.
"When you think about it, we've got the most supporters of any league in Europe by a country mile. The work the clubs do in communities. The clubs have worked as hard as they can to maximise all their commercial revenues. The men's team has just been to three major tournament finals in a row. There's a lot of good stuff going on, but there's obviously an issue when it comes to under-21 minutes, when it comes to that player trading model. Clubs obviously aren't being strategic enough when it gets to the point that clubs are signing 10, 11, 12 players the window. That can't be the best way to do this. It can't be. And we all need to take a look at ourselves and understand what we can do differently. And what we can do to try and move the needle further. Because that's what we all want to do.
"I made the point to the owners and the chief execs that were in the room ... we all talk about being custodians of the game. Everybody when they join a board will talk about 'I'm a custodian of my club, I want to leave it in a better place'. This is a chance to go and do that. This is something transformational. And this is the good stuff. I don't really want to be talking to people about refereeing decisions and registration problems and disciplinary issues. We're always going to have that because it's just part of football. But when you're involved in football it's because you want to give your club the best chance of having the successful nights that you always remember. We want to give the association, the country, the best chance of having more Denmark nights than we care to remember. Because everybody remembers it because it doesn't happen often enough."
Q: The first stage to fixing the problem is acknowledging its existence. Did you feel that in the room?
"Yeah. None of what we told anybody is a surprise. Nobody can say they couldn't see it coming, they didn't know it was happening, they don't know where we are as a game. I think if you take a step back and you're honest about it ... I didn't get the sense that we surprised them. I didn't get the sense that there was negativity in the room.
"Like anything, you stick 42 clubs, 42 businesses with the different sizes that we've got ... some are going to like it more than others, some are going to be looking at it straight away. Ironically, Rangers are at the top at under-21 minutes with I think it's 5.8 per cent right now. So we're asking them to play another 0.2 per cent minutes. That doesn't feel like a lot. So it's not like we're asking clubs to move mountains and jump through hoops. There's an argument that if you've got an academy that can't find the players needed, there's serious questions to be asked. That's the reality."
Q: Our academies are making 7p for every pound we invest. In Sweden they're making £2.70 for every pound they invest. Surely as a business proposition, if nothing else, there are benefits of using academies?
"I think that goes back to that more strategic point. I think that goes back to every part of the club being joined up. If you go into any academy, they'll talk about developing players. If you talk to any academy manager, he'll tell you he's got players ready to play. If you talk to any first team manager, they'll say they're happy to play players. But there's not the buy-in. Clubs don't view it as 'this is what we want to do, as a club, this is what we want to do'.
"There's a bit of going to supporters and saying, see if you want us to be better, we're going to have to do this. This is what the evidence shows us. This is what the best clubs across Europe are doing. We need to be part of this process. We're going to play younger players and we're going to end up where we're going to end up. The data also shows you it doesn't actually have a negative impact. That's another one of the myths. 'You play younger players, you lose games'. The Twenty First group showed us that it actually had the opposite effect when they came on later on in matches.
"You can always ask 'what we can't because' - we need to change the mindset to 'we can and we will'. It's a Scottish DNA problem. It's certainly a Scottish football problem. The first question is, 'I'll tell you why I can't'. It doesn't matter why you can't, this is what we need to do. Or we're just going to end up sitting here and there'll be another chief exec in 20 years' time sitting with the same meeting, having the same think-tanks and the same reviews and we said that to them.
"Normally we would have stood up and presented all that and said, 'right we'll have six working groups and we'll spend eight months and we'll talk about it and three clubs will want to do this and four clubs will want to do that and five clubs will want to do this'. No, that's what we're doing. This is what we think is right. There's the evidence that shows you why it's going to make a difference. You want us to help, then you know we're helping. We're telling you and we need you to get on board.”
Q: Are there not enough game opportunities for youngsters. There's gaps from under-19s to first team, etc. There's a lot of issues there as well. It's not just the simple 'strong players in first teams' idea?
"I also think there's a reality about football now. When I played for St Mirren, if you didn't play for the first team on a Saturday, you played reserves on a Tuesday. Football's different, with data, with sports science, with the way players train, you don't get players playing in reserve games now. Because we've got five subs, they get them fit by playing them in first-team football. So that whole reserve league bit is no longer there. Clubs have spent more money on a bigger, better first team squad than looking at a reserve squad. And there's a bit of dealing with the reality that we're in.
"I heard the podcast with John McGinn when he was on with Gary Lineker and Roy Keane and they were talking about reserve football and John was saying, 'see this, Premier League 2, it's nonsense, They're kidding themselves, it's never been anywhere near football'. So in every country you'll go in and look at pathways and go, it could be different, it should be different. I'm not saying it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we must be developing players that can go and play in first team."
Q: Wasn't reserve team football part of that pathway because you would play against me and make you grow up?
"But it wasn't that long ago when you had four channels on the TV. The world moves on."
Q: But physicality doesn't move on?
"But that's the problem. 'Ah, but that's what happened back then'. Right, okay, great, but it's not like that anymore. The world's not like that anymore."
Q: So if we don't do that, how does an 18, 19-year-old boy who's not quite ready for the first team get the physicality?
"Because the system now is he goes on a co-op loan when he's 17, 18 to League One, League Two, and that becomes his reserve league. That's his reserve league, that's his meaningful football. And then when you come in at that 19, 20, you maybe have a year in the Championship when you're 19, then you're going into the Premiership when you're 20. Clubs need to think about that because that's the beauty of the co-operation loan system. And like Craig [Mulholland] said, those leagues are seeing a lot of younger minutes, and those clubs will be quite happy getting those players.
"I think that exposure at 17 or 18 can be Andy Robertson going to Queen's Park. Dundee were in the room, they talked about Luke Graham, and rhymed off Albion Rovers, three or four different clubs that he's played for all the way through. I don't think we're in a position now to get too upset about what the level is at 18, 19, because you start playing, if that's what the old reserve league used to be, there is a pathway there that gets you through that.
Q: So by the end of November we could be in a different place? We could have a plan in place?
"We should have a plan in place. That's another reason why we're trying to do it at this timeline, because it gives clubs two transfer windows if they need to do anything, change their squad. We're talking about bringing academy players through, but that might mean that some further up move, however they want to do it, but it gives them an opportunity to look at their squads over that period.
Q: How do you tackle agents and the financial lure down south?
"Good question. We need a story to tell them. When you're a young player and you're a young player's parents, and you're weighing up going to Scotland or staying in England, there's no bit of it that attracts you to stay in Scotland at the moment, because there's no visible pathway. The education piece, as Craig mentioned, he would have said, Nottingham Forest have got nine full-time teachers in their club. We've got a different educational system, I think it's based on an SVQ that players get, so there's no bit of the support that's going to get wrapped around that player that makes the family go 'actually the best thing is to play here'. It's going to take time, but if we can get to the point that in five years' time we've got five or six Lennon Millers or Calvin Ramsays or whoever it might be that have been through a pathway in Scotland, played 150 games and got their move.
"I mean, Lennon Miller's a really good example, you're not telling me that some agent didn't come to Lennon and his dad and sit them down and go, I can take you down south for this, even after a season at Motherwell. They've obviously made a decision that says, you know what, no, we're staying here. He then moves for £5 million and earns whatever he's earning at Udinese. He could have gone for £200,000 three years before that and earned £5,000 a week, I'm going to make these numbers up, whatever the salary is, but he's earning four or five times that now. So that's actually the pathway, that's what we're trying to say to players. If you stay, that's where you end up, but they can't just see it as a one-off.
"I think the agent thing is a difficult one. I think we need to probably try and get a bit closer to agents and get them to understand that there's a pathway as well and get them to understand that we are making changes because there's a business model that's linked to that, but if you're an agent, are you better moving a player at 16, 17 for X or are you better waiting for 21 and getting four or five times X? So there's benefits to them as well.
Q: Is there currently any communication with agents?
"No. It's probably never really been a space that we've thought about getting into, but probably never really wanted or needed to get into because agents will deal with clubs and deal with players more than anything else."
Q: Do you feel that's changed now though?
"There is work for us to do, there definitely is. What that looks like and how best to engage with them is up for a bit of debate. we'll need to think that one through, but there's definitely something to make them even just aware of this is what's happening, but the only thing that will highlight it is when they see it happen"
Q: Do you have to look at the GBE (Governing Body Endorsement) for how foreign players can come in?
"It's not in the plans at the moment because we think this is going to have a significant impact, but we just need to see. We just need to see. Listen, there's been examples of the GBE working really well, when you look at Elijah Just coming in at Motherwell. If we want to talk about player trading, we can't just think that's Scottish players. That's not how it works. It's not how it works at any of the clubs that do it really well. We've got a Brexit challenge. The Club Brugge model, they can sign from across Europe and beyond, it's easier because of freedom of movement and all that thing.
"Because of Brexit, we don't have those opportunities, but we can't think that player trading is only ever going to be Scottish players. It's not. There are examples of the GBE system working really well and players coming in and having a really significant impact. There's obviously the flip side, which there's always been because the Twenty First Group said signings are hard. They said in their first year, players play 45 per cent a minute or something like that, which, again, you wouldn't think. You would look at it and go, well, that's actually not very good. So, the GBE piece is one that needs to be considered in the round. We're thinking about the whole piece, how do we fit it all together.
Q: What about quotas? Would you bring them in?
"Do you know what? That's a really good question. I mean, Norway have obviously got 16 out of 25 that need to be homegrown. Everybody does it. I think, out of the top 20, there was only three that didn't have some sort of rule. Everybody does it slightly differently. Some have got a quota as in it needs to be part of the 25 that you submit to the league at the start of the season. Some have got a quota that needs to have a number of players in your matchday squad. Hungary have got five Hungarians that need to be on the pitch at all times. The Hungarian one's not age-specific. Romania have got you need to have one under 21 on the pitch at all times. So, everybody does it slightly differently.
"And because we're on a journey with it, we need to strike the balance between doing something that will make a difference and if we can do that and effectively almost quadruple the amount of minutes that we've got being played by under-21 Scottish players, it still might only be 7-8 per cent, it still might only be mid-table, but it's four times more than we're getting at the minute.
“So, it's that journey. So, whether we get to quotas at some point is up for debate. As far as we're concerned, nothing's off the table with trying to make sure that we get enough minutes. I would love to think that it would happen by default and it wouldn't actually need a regulation. But, generically, clubs will start to play more and more and see the benefit of playing more and more. And before you know it, that 7 per cent, 10, 11, 12, whatever it is, all under its own steam. Whether we get there or not, we don't know."
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