Obviously this begs a lot of questions.
Quote: FC_Jay "We have a lot of youngsters in the city, surely having one full time academy will lower the numbers making it through to Superleague?'"
Only if this were the bottleneck in the player pathway, which seems unlikely to me. In principle I’d favour a smaller number of regional academies, ideally RFL-funded and run, with the cash coming out of the Sky grant. I think this would allow resources to better focussed and with talent being less dilute, hopefully it’d raise the standard.
If, as AP believes and anticipates, a single academy in Hull will be run by Hull FC then will they be running it on behalf of the RFL with RFL funding, or will it effectively just be Hull FC’s academy with Rovers’ shutting up shop? If the former then anybody (Rovers, Cas, Bradford, Wigan) should be allowed to sign players coming through the ranks, just as Hull could sign players from a Calder academy, etc. I don’t think a draft would work too well with all the issues of employment law, restraint of trade and so on. Hull might have a slight advantage in recruitment, through knowing players better. There’d also be potential for a conflict of interest, with players known to be choosing other clubs getting their development de-prioritised – but with a bit of independent oversight it could work okay. If Hull pay for it, the advantage is clear – they get to ‘cherry pick’. Those not running academies save some money with which to 'poach'. It wouldn't be the healthiest set-up, having 2 tiers, but the sport isn’t in robust health, so maybe needs-must.
My worry is that they go for something in between, as a compromise. Everybody thinks they’re getting their own interpretation and they all end up feeling aggrieved.
It’ll also be interesting to see how many teams and at what age group(s) a ‘super-academy’ constitutes. I’ve heard rumours that there’ll be under-23/reserve teams for all SL teams – so how the academy structure would fit with that and whether dual-reg will be retained will be interesting.
Quote: FC_Jay "So what will Elite status have? What will the point of Hkr's academy be?'"
If AP’s assessment is correct, it sounds like more than just different badging to me. The only way, if AP is right, that Rovers would also have an academy would be if they and other clubs felt forcibly disenfranchised and decided operate a separate system – which actually might have some advantages for the club, IMO. But if enough feel that way, the change wouldn’t get approval in the first place.
