The answer might not immediately appear to obvious, so let’s look at why we think it may benefit grassroots.
Since the billionaire club known as the Premier league was taken over by corporate owners wanting instant overnight commercial and footballing success the landscape began to change.
Historically the successful teams grew and developed there own teams through nurturing youth players and buying abroad as the exception and not the rule.
If we look at the 80s and 90s the 2 examples that spring to mind would be Liverpool and Man Utd. Of course big money moves from superstar players occurred because these players wanted to play for the best teams but youth players weren’t cast aside and were given time to develop.
If we jump forward in time to the Chelsea’s and Man City teams that have dominated the last few years based on being able to buy the best players, often buying up and coming uk talent to be forced into the bench.
Now we move to Leicester who have bought players for lower leagues, youth squads and abroad and created a team that work for each other. It works, Vardy has proven there will be 1000s of players in the lower leagues and youth academy’s that could take the premier league by storm.
Football has a funny way of going round in circles, if the Saudi and Russian billionaires are watching homegrown talent and youth players outplaying there 250million pound squads, believe me they will reconsider why they are spending so much.
So our original question was will it benefit grassroots football, the answer could be yes, a new generation of players will see Vardy can go from lower leagues to premier league. Players from the lower leagues can see a ladder to the premier league and clubs could see the benefit of recruiting more players from the grassroots game and maybe investing some of the money at the bottom instead of at the top.
But that’s just our opinion, and football is a game based heavily on opinions. What do you think??
