Stephen Hopcroft...

[Johnnykayeengland]

We should take a leaf out of Brentford's book. They did away with their academy and concentrated on recruiting 16/17 year olds who hadn't  been retained by the clubs they'd joined as boys.

I'm  getting cheesed off with with losing our kids to bigger clubs when we've  invested time and money in them and end up receiving peanuts in return. Until the football authorities make it worth our while I think we should close the academy.

As more and more clubs do this maybe they'll finally  get the message

Massive +1. I'd write to the FA and tell them we are closing down our academy and following Brentfords example. Can you imagine if everyone starts to do it. They'd shit themselves.

It makes perfect sense. Let other teams polish them up and then look for value through the scouting of other academies.

For example we released Marcus Forss a few years back and they picked him up. Gone on and scored goals on loan for them and is very highly regarded by all accounts.

Makes sense, especially if we do it in concert with other clubs.
As we've discussed before, it's not just Albion who suffer in this way.