United poach winger James Bailey from Burnley U14s

[Mattster]

Just spotted this on Twitter. Can't say I know anything about him as a player but must be seen as a prospect for Manchester United to be poaching him.

[Sean Dyche's Watch]

Weatherfield County will be due some compensation.

[jtv]

Do we get compensation?

[Funkydrummer]

Is that permitted ?

Although, with it being yoonitid, I don't suppose rules and regulations
matter too much.

[AfloatinClaret]

As we're now a Premiership Academy, we do presumably have some degree of choice/control over this lad moving on to Man Utd. I saw the recent thread where we got a lad from a Championship/D1 Academy and the suggestion was that when we made an offer which the lad accepted, is current club had no option but to allow the transfer at a fixed compensation fee; what's the situation when the move's between Premiership Academies?

[Mattster]

Do we get compensation?

Yeah, think the fixed fee things still apply. Assuming he's been with us since U9 level we'll get around £90k. If he makes senior appearances then we'll get additional fees.

[Darthlaw]

Turned out well for John Cofie...

Best of luck to the lad.

[Juan Tanamera]

Isn't poaching illegal?

[Rowls]

Isn't poaching illegal?

Time to employ a gamekeeper to manage the brood at Gawthorpe

[Burnley1989]

At that age they should be allowed to go were they want, it’s wrong to pay for a child or expect money for one. It just doesn’t sit right with me.

I get that there’s a cost to us developing them but it’s just one of those things, companies put apprentices through 4-6 years of training then they leave for a company that pays more money, it’s life.

I guess that’s football though

[fatboy47]

At that age they should be allowed to go were they want, it’s wrong to pay for a child or expect money for one. It just doesn’t sit right with me.

I get that there’s a cost to us developing them but it’s just one of those things, companies put apprentices through 4-6 years of training then they leave for a company that pays more money, it’s life.

I guess that’s football though

Great idea... Be so good to end up with just half a dozen academies in the whole country.

[Burnley1989]

Great idea... Be so good to end up with just half a dozen academies in the whole country.

How would that be then? Why would the top clubs want players not deemed good enough for that level?

Like I said, owning a child and making money from them just seems wrong.I don’t believe you should be allowed to pay money for them, they should get to play were they want. It’s a hobby at that age, not a job.

And yes, I do understand this favours the big clubs and I don’t know what the alternative solution is, I just think it’s wrong.

[Burnley Ace]

It’s a dichotomy for young players, do you turn down the option of possibly progressing through the Utd ranks to the first team or stay at a smaller club were is more chance of progress? I saw a bit of the 2nd half of Eng under 20’s, captained by James Hill, 19 year old central defender playing first team at Fleetwood who scored a lovely goal at the back post (it was a great cross!), is he in a better place than a few under 23s at United?

[ClaretTony]

Is poached the correct word? I heard we'd willingly sold two kids this age to Man U.

[Quickenthetempo]

Is poached the correct word? I heard we'd willingly sold two kids this age to Man U.

I don't know if poached is the right word, but I don't like the sentence 'we have willingly sold two kids' either.

Could we settle for 'adequately compensated'?

[TheFamilyCat]

Selling kids is all a bit Oliver Twist.

[fatboy47]

How would that be then? Why would the top clubs want players not deemed good enough for that level?

Like I said, owning a child and making money from them just seems wrong.I don’t believe you should be allowed to pay money for them, they should get to play were they want. It’s a hobby at that age, not a job.

And yes, I do understand this favours the big clubs and I don’t know what the alternative solution is, I just think it’s wrong.

I understand what you say..and it makes good sense.. I guess what I'm trying (not very well) to say, is that if the biggest fattest pigs want to slobber up everything in the trough then at the very least we should screw every bit of cash out of them that we're able to.

[dsr]

How would that be then? Why would the top clubs want players not deemed good enough for that level?

Like I said, owning a child and making money from them just seems wrong.I don’t believe you should be allowed to pay money for them, they should get to play were they want. It’s a hobby at that age, not a job.

And yes, I do understand this favours the big clubs and I don’t know what the alternative solution is, I just think it’s wrong.

Nothing to do with "owning a child". It's well established in football that when we talk about selling players, it isn't slave trading, it's merely selling their playing registration.

It's all very well saying that there should be no registration rights to the clubs re. schoolboys. But then there would be no benefit to the clubs in teaching them how to play. Schoolboy football will only work IMO if either the clubs are kept out of it altogether and a string of either charities or private businesses do it all, or else there is mutual benefit between the club and the player.

[superdimitri]

If you think this is bad then read up about true player ownership ala Tevez or Mascherano. The kid (and his parents) clearly had a choice.

Hopefully in time we'll get our reputation up so kids stay for a better chance to play. That'll only happen with better youth team results and a path for regular youth into our first team.