Quote Originally Posted by Undercoverinwurzelland View Post
There should be a rule making it compulsory for the purchasing clubs to include really decent sell-on clauses when they sign players too young for professional contracts who've been with the selling club for more than a couple of years. Could be a sliding scale based on how long they've been with the academy.

£250k is nothing to Man City. How many of these players do they and the other big teams hoover up every year, with the possibility that they'll either make it and play for them or they'll sell them for a tidy profit? The big clubs get bigger, the small clubs stay small.
Man City and Chelsea just stock pile players to sell on for profit. The players they really think can make the first team will have been on their books from a young age, or the top foreign talent they sign from other European clubs. In my opinion when they are signing 15 year olds from lower league acadmeys its with sole purpose of making a profit on the 250k they need to fork out (and probably another £400k to buy the family a nice house and car and move them to the area).