Quote: Dave K. "Every club in SL could have good academies if they had invested in it the last few years. Look at Bradford and the amount of players they still produce.'"
And the amount of good it does them.
Are you appealing to clubs’ better natures, or sense of duty… suggesting that they should do the ‘right thing’? That’s nice and everything, but not a sound basis for developing a policy or system that might work.
The issue is that most clubs would be investing at the expense of other key parts of their business, and are not guaranteed any direct benefit. Even if they produce good players, they’ll be picked off.
The return on investment on player development is really bad. So, unless you can subsidise it with money you can’t spend elsewhere (i.e., you’re a relatively rich club constrained to some degree by the the salary cap), or you have system that is able to accept a poor direct return (same principle as a key public service), it won’t work very well.