What becomes of the academy

[filham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

Yes, Davis was superior to any academy player. He served us for many seasons and was involved in three promotions eventually leaving and earning  money in the transfer market, Carvalho for instance has had but one full season and is about to leave for a fee that is unlikely to buy us a decent premier league player.

I think you are completely missing my point. Do you believe Davis was superior because he didn't come from the academy? Otherwise him being superior or not (although you seem to base that on the actual outcome rather than quality) has nothing at all to do with whether or not we should have an academy.

So, in short, what does Sean Davis have to do with this discussion in your opinion?

Sorry, can't see your point of view. Surely the purpose of the academy is to produce quality talent for the first team and were they to produce, every other year, a player with Sean Davis's Fulham record then I would say mission accomplished. Carvalho a promising player is not going to serve us that well. Patrick Roberts , who I thought had a great future and was perhaps the best talent we had seen for years has a record of doing very little on the field but bringing in £12m in transfer money.

Afraid we have to look at the final results when judging the academy, the proof of the pudding is in the eating not in how the dish is prepared.

I must confess I'm struggling to follow your point.

A Fulham academy player has had huge impact on each of the last 3 promotion seasons we've had from the championship. Surely that's all the pudding you'd need??

(It also meets your requirement of a player every other year)

2017-18: Ryan Sessegnon
2019-20: Marek Rodak
2021-22: Fabio Carvalho

You could be on the way to convincing me but we our now facing a season when again we will be without an academy player in our line up.  A lot of us older fans were accustomed ,in days gone by, to seeing young home grown talent regularly in our team and yearn for something similar now. We just seem to have near misses nowadays.

[Montague]

The purpose of the Academy is to produce professional footballers - hence the funding from the Premier League towards running the Academy ( I think Fulham get about £1.2M per year from the PL towards running the Academy https://www.premierleague.com/news/1939288) and it's to the clubs bonus if these players stay with the parent club and sign scholarships or pro contracts further down the line (and become a tangible asset). An yone who has had kids in a football club academy is told this during reviews - the coaches are there to produce professional footballers be it where ever the kids end up playing.

A football club is part of the community and people forget the community support aspect of a clubs academy - I believe Fulham can have up to 250 kids registered as academy players who receive educational and welfare support from the club, and this is without the involvement and support also given to the Fulham foundation (who also receive PL funding)