A DELEGATION from the Scottish FA is set to propose some far reaching rule changes to help tackle the lack of first-team opportunities for young players in Scottish football.
It comes on the back of a scathing report carried out by members of the SFA’s Professional Game Board which showed just how little opportunities youth players coming through the ranks at top Scottish clubs have been given recent years.
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While there had been recent successes in the top flight with Lennon Miller coming through at Motherwell and David Watson shining at Kilmarnock, opportunities at the sharp end of the Scottish game have been in short supply.
The report revealed that Rangers had a Scottish Under-21 player on the field for just 26 minutes in the first 33 Prem matches of the season, with Celtic having one on for just 89 minutes.
Now the Scottish Daily Mail reports that the review’s authors Andy Gould and Chris Docherty are set to brief our game’s top clubs at the SPFL’s Competitions Working Group next week in order to push through club co-operation agreements between clubs.
It’s an idea which would allow young players an opportunity to move freely between the top and lower leagues outwith the transfer windows.
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Countries such as Hungary and Croatia have modelled a similar structure.
But it would also require a change to league rules, so it is hoped that a vote can be put forward to all 42 SPFL clubs before the end of the season.
Other measures recommended by the report will also be discussed.
These include innovations that would encourage young players to feature more regularly in cup competitions, and a scholarship system to discourage cross-border moves until a player turns 16.
A full-scale review of the entire youth development strategy has also been mooted.
The most high profile strategic partnerships introduced between Scottish clubs in the past came in a unique link-up between Hibs and Stenhousemuir in 2020.
Although the partnership has since been abolished, Stenhousemuir chairman Iain McMenemy believes it’s something that could benefit the Scottish game.
McMenemy told the Scottish Daily Mail: “I always believed that this was definitely one of the the routes – if not the best route – for Scottish football.
“This could be good for the club because they’re getting really good players that are potentially coming in and playing first-team football.
“What it needs most of all is a total buy-in from the bigger club.
“What we had with Hibernian was a written agreement.
“It didn’t rely on money going back and forth. It just relied on a strong commitment from from both sides.
“Guys (at Hibs) like Jack Ross and Graeme Mathie understood it. They bought into it right away and saw the absolute benefits to it. When they both moved on from the club, it fell apart. The board didn’t see it as the route to go
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“If they get players through the system in a much more strategic way, I think that would benefit the game at large.
“But it’s very difficult to get people to agree on anything in Scottish football.”
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