AS a parent of a talented young footballer, your heart is likely to swell with pride if a professional club asks him, and you, to sign a registration form.

It's the start of the dream; one that could lead to the big-money leagues of England and Spain - or failing that, a decent long-term career in Scotland.

Later this year, another batch of around 350 hopeful 10-year-olds and their parents will enter the dream factory known as Club Academy Scotland. Founded amidst much optimism as the Scottish Football Youth Initiative exactly 20 years ago, whatever accusations can be hurled at CAS, exclusivity is not amongst them.

Are there really 3,180 boys between the ages of 10 and 17 in Scotland who can be regarded as elite professional footballer material? This was the capacity of the country's 31 pro-youth academies last season, although the Scottish FA estimate that the actual number was closer to 2,600.

The huge amount of boys, in a nation with a population of just over five million, makes no sense at all, as was acknowledged by the consultant retained to devise the SFA's performance strategy. In his summary report issued in November, 2010, he recommended halving the number of top academies and "significantly reducing" the number of players in the Youth Initiative (now CAS) - possibly by introducing dual age bands.

Part I: Why Club Academy Scotland is failing the game 

Suffice to say, with our senior clubs as ever protecting their own interests, this hasn't happened. The numbers in CAS continue to suggest that there is a limitless pool of talented young footballers in Scotland, when the reality is that societal changes have shrunk the numbers of young boys playing the sport in school playgrounds and public parks.

The clubs, to be candid, appear to be showing little duty of care towards the vast majority of boys who will be taken into the CAS system and spat out at the other end. Nor do they show much concern about the damage they are doing to grassroots and schools football. The dream will be realised for only for a tiny percentage of boys, a fact that is all the more valid given the financial state of Scottish football.

One Scottish club director has at least had the honesty to admit what is going on at many of our academies. Clyde, who had a bronze two-star rating in CAS last season, decided earlier this month to scrap their academy and, in a searingly frank quote, their chairman, John Alexander, told another newspaper: "The issue for us wasn't economics, it was the belief we were being dishonest to kids and their parents.

"They were buying into something we couldn't do - develop them into first-team players."

Attempts by the Herald to speak to Alexander proved unsuccessful, but fellow director Bobby Gracey was happy to clarify the club's position. Pointing out that the club also runs a successful community programme, he said: "The board's stategy for the academy was that we had to have elite young players capable of playing for the first team.

"They also had to be of better quality than the players we already have at the club. Unfortunately, because of where Clyde finds itself at the moment [League 2], the quality of boys coming through the door doesn't enable us to fulfill that ambition."

That statement is borne out by the fact that only one boy has progressed all the way from the Under-13s to the Clyde first team, but after a few games wasn't deemed to be of the required standard and was released.

Yet, if that is revealing, what Gracey had to say next was deeply disturbing about the standard of player being developed by our elite club academies. Clyde had on loan a young player each from Celtic, Kilmarnock and Rangers last season, one of whom was a Scotland Under-19 internationalist.

"He wasn't physically strong enough," Gracey said of the latter. "All three of them were great players technically, but two or three years away from being ready to play first-team football.

"I find the academy environment quite a sterile one. When young players step out of it, they come into a tougher world. One of the challenges I see is that a lot of these kids aren't mentally tough enough for professional football.

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

"If you follow some of the academy models, the system produces joiners when actually you need plumbers. It is not aligned to first-team football - although I accept our league is a physical one and it might be easier for these young players to adapt in a Premiership club where there is more time on the ball and it's a different game."

Scrutiny of Premiership teams last season suggests that premise is off the mark. The pro-youth system, don't forget, has now been up and running for 20 years; as stated in the introduction to this series, there must be literally thousands of footballers between the ages of 18 and 35 who have been developed by, first, the Youth Initiative, and now CAS.

Having passed through a phase where many of our top clubs tried to bankrupt themselves - and some succeeded - by importing highly paid foreign players, the impression is that they now rely far more heavily on home-reared products.

As our tables show, the reality is once again different from perception. While it must be emphasised that three weekends chosen at random doesn't constitute a scientific survey, the evidence suggests half of our Premiership clubs rely more heavily on non-Scottish players than Scots to start games.

Worse, those who used the least Scots were the most likely to be successful. Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Celtic came bottom of our three-match table, yet won all the silverware on offer.

If the template for success is to ignore the young players who have been developed in Club Academy Scotland, the question is why, after 20 years, we are persisting with a system which appears to be doing more harm than good?