Investigation, Part I: Why Club Academy Scotland is failing Scottish football

Initially set up under the auspices of the Scottish Football League, I can recall the genuine enthusiasm of an acquaintance who worked for the organisation. With much less emphasis on competition, and much more on coaching, my friend genuinely believed the Youth Initiative was going to transform Scottish football.

Exactly 20 years later, with the pro-youth system having had the opportunity to develop thousands of young footballers, the reality is vastly different. Where are the outstanding players? Of equal concern, what damage is Club Academy Scotland doing to its participants and grassroots football in general?

Today at Holyrood, Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People, Tam Baillie, will relay to politicians his serious concerns about the manner in which the 31 clubs involved in CAS are riding roughshod over the rights of young players and their parents.

On a separate front, youth club campaigners insist that the staggering amount of boys involved in CAS - it has the capacity to register well over 3000 young players - is creating havoc with grassroots football. Given that it was boys clubs who nurtured all the famous Scottish footballers of the past, including Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness, the medium-term implications of the base of the footballing pyramid being damaged in this manner are potentially very serious.

And for what? Club Academy Scotland, according to its critics, is not fulfilling the objectives set when it was started, with such optimism, 20 years ago. Where, amongst our top clubs and international teams, are the players who were supposed to make a difference?

Of our current internationalists, at least Darren Fletcher can boast that he was good enough to play for one of the world's most elite clubs in Manchester United. But he is not - and perhaps this is not a coincidence - a CAS product. He played for the Edinburgh footballing nursery Hutchison Vale before moving to Old Trafford.

Part II: Call for action over 'children's transfer market' 

Similarly, former Scotland under-21 captain Stuart Armstrong, Celtic's winter signing from Dundee United, was nurtured by Dyce Boys Club. Another former United player who has the potential to be outstanding, Ryan Gauld, did come through CAS - but significantly also had the benefit of specialist coaching from Ian Cathro, regarded as a visionary in terms of youth development.

Not only is the pro-youth system failing to produce a better standard of footballer, it isn't even meeting Scottish FA targets. The goal for 2015 was that 75 per cent of Premiership footballers would be Scottish - yet many of our top teams are still fielding more non-Scots than Scots in their starting XIs.

The most extreme example last season was Inverness Caledonian Thistle. On a results-to-resources ratio John Hughes' side were probably the most successful in Scotland, but on at least one occasion the Inverness starting side contained only one Scottish player, Graeme Shinnie.

In the course of the season, Caley Thistle won the Scottish Cup and finished third in the Premiership with players largely plucked from England's lower divisions. Could there possibly be a more damning indictment of two decades of professional youth development in this country?

Well, yes. In a match of brutally low quality in Dublin earlier this month, Scotland manager Gordon Strachan started with three outfield players who were born, brought up and developed in England (Russell Martin, James Morrison and Matt Ritchie). It is generally accepted that the quality of player available to Strachan is not great.

Club Academy Scotland, then, appears to be failing not just its own members, who appear to have little faith in the young players they develop, but the international team as well.

If this was merely a systemic failure, with nobody being damaged in the process, it might be possible to turn a blind eye. Yes, it hurts that Scotland hasn't qualified (by sheer coincidence, of course) for a World Cup or European Championships since the Youth Initiative was established, and that our clubs rarely trouble the Europa League beyond September, but if we keep believing in miracles the new Messi might be born in Methil.

Part III: The damning evidence  

Unfortunately, as has already been outlined, there is collateral damage - and it is considerable. Despite the evidence stacking up that Club Academy Scotland may be a massive waste of time and resources, producing a standard of young footballer no better than those who might have developed at, say, Hutchison Vale, our senior clubs seem intent in sucking ever more children and teenagers into the system. All in the hope that they might, just might, get their clutches on that mythical little messiah from Methil.

These 3000 boys in Club Academy Scotland have to come from somewhere and, inevitably, they are taken from grassroots clubs. With such a huge number involved it's not just the cream that is being removed; in some extreme cases, entire boys clubs teams have folded.

There has also been a detrimental impact on schools football. Just as it was recovering from the teachers' strike of the 1980s, along came the Youth Initiative in the nineties. Initially - again, for what were perceived at the time to be the right reasons - all pro-youth players were banned from playing for their school teams.

That was later amended to be at the discretion of the professional clubs - but for many boys, the outcome is exactly the same; they still can't play alongside their classroom pals.

That is one of the human rights issues that the Children's Commissioner will be speaking to Scotland's politicans about today. He will argue that Club Academy Scotland is failing children and young adults. It is becoming increasingly clear it is failing Scottish football as well.