Lundan Cabbie":2n3knq1g said:
jimsing":2n3knq1g said:
It has been reported in the Sunday Independant that Southampton have completed the signing of defender Oliver GARDNER, who has been under Argyle since he was 12 yrs of age. Southampton first expressed an interest in him when he played in the Northern Ireland Milk Cup in July last year.
This is the third talented youngster to have been taken from us by them. What the hell is the point in us helping to fund our youngsters to go to play in the Milk Cup each year, if the best is going to be snaffled by the big boys?
We must climb the leagues and return to our rightful position, so that we have half a chance of holding on to our talented youngsters, that are found and progressed by our outstanding coaching staff.
What is the point in funding these boys, only to lose them to the mighty Southampton (or whoever else comes in for them). I wouldn't mind if we were rightfully compensated for our efforts, but the big boys are getting a bargain for peanuts, and our coaching talent is being wasted on boys who go elsewhere.
I don't blame the boys for going to a Premiership Club.
I blame the Football League for caving in to the Premiership and not getting a better deal for their League Clubs. It will only get worse, and the Clubs in the Football League will be the losers in the end.
This isn't exactly breaking news. In the summer Darren Gough mentioned on TalkSport that Southampton had taken yet another Argyle youngster (Olly Gardner) at the time when the Saints were losing older players to bigger clubs themselves.
Gardner's father Lee was a professional footballer himself so I am sure he understands what is a good move for his son and what isn't.
As for compensation to Argyle, the EPPP tables are not there to provide Argyle with what they
MAY have got for him in years to come
IF he had gone on and made the grade but it is compensation for what they have contributed to his progresss from ages 9-14. The EPPP formula brings in just over £30,000 for Gardner which I am sure does not leave Argyle out of pocket.
We're well aware of the theory behind it LC, you've mentioned it on here previously. The thing is Argyle didn't invest £30,000 plus 5 years of time and effort to simply break-even on the lad. The idea of investing money in younger players should be to either overcome big transfer fees by developing our team in-house or selling on a younger player for a nice profit. The whole system becomes flawed when you remove the opportunity for the investor to make any profits whatsoever from their time. Imagine how that would work in the business world, entrepreneur spends 5-10 years of their life building a business from the ground up, putting years of effort and belief into that business. Then as soon as that business shows signs of promise, in steps a bigger business who hands over the costs that entrepreneur incurred and they're then forced to sell up because some third party thinks that the bigger business could do a better job of it.
Will Southampton profit if this lad makes it? You bet they will, there isn't a cat in hells chance they'd sell up to Man Utd etc. for "cost price" regardless of how far into this lad's development they eventually sell him at. Will he go on to better things than he would have done playing for Argyle? Under the current system quite possibly. That does not mean we shouldn't profit from his talent as Southampton will though. Of course as Southampton will eventually have a greater impact on his development they should hold a greater share of any end profit. However we should still get something, we shouldn't be forced to sell him for what some rule says it costed us to get him to a position where a bigger club can pat us on the head and take over.
Thing is, if he was honestly worth only £30,000 to Plymouth Argyle football club then there wouldn't need to be a rule in place that forces us to sell him at that price, we would simply accept the offer. The truth is we wouldn't accept such a small fee for him if the rule wasn't in place because he is worth far more to us than that which is exactly why this rule is in place, to force smaller clubs like Argyle to sell up for less than they would in a free market.
We are investors in younger players as much as any other club, be them big or small. We should have as much right to sell our investments at a price we agree with the buyer, that is how investments work for the investor to make a profit you simply wouldn't risk the money otherwise. We are very much "out of pocket", the EPPP rule has effectively taken away our normal profit on the lad and left us with nothing more than our initial investment. Not only that but we have effectively wasted 5 years of time on this lad to the tune of diddly squat. 5 years we've spent on him, 5 years that another boy could have had at Argyle who although may not have gone on to be as good might have actually gone on to generate at least some return on our investment.
As before, sickening it really is... :furious:
