A look at the the FFO Academy System

[Dave Thacker]

My club, Red Bull Salzburg, has made a significant investment for the FFO academy system. To me it looks like the only way can build up a club with keep the balance sheet healthy. Others can jostle in the auction ring, but Salzburg doesn’t have the brass.

We’re roughly a season and half into the FFO Academy experiment. At the end of thi seasons the first players will be eligible to join their club. This is a small snapshot of Academy usage and what the first graduates might look like. I’m going from the info I know and rules that I’ve read. I’m not an FFO admin and if I’ve got something wrong, let me know.

The very short history of the Academy.

• JB created the Academy at the start of Season 3. Each club received 7 morplayers for total enrollment of 560. Check out the Rules in the Resource section to see how they are trained.
• Before the start of the start of season 4, clubs were offered the chance to purchase an additional player for the academy for cash, or subscribe to a scout for bring in a player each year for 5 seasons. Whether you used cash or subscribed to a scout, you could up to 3 more players per season.
• My research shows me that after the first expansion period, we now have 617 players in the academy, an average of 7.7 players per club.

Club purchased expansion-what kind were chosen
I’ve done a basic breakdown of player type. I’m just looking at Keeper, DF, MF, and FW. I’ll need to tweak my research to get a good count on AM and DM. During the first expansion, managers could select the type of player the wanted. Not surprisingly, no Keepers were requested during that time. Each club got one in the original academy and we are still at 80.

Position	Number of Players
Keeper	80
DF	185
MF	189
FW	163

Of course AM’s and DM’s will probably be included in the MF total.



How many clubs bought the expansion?
There was more expansion in the EFL side than the Prem/Champ side.
Academy Expansion by League

League	Clubs Expanding Academy
Prem	8
Champ	9
EFL1	10
EFL2	10

We will see if the expansion trend increases between Season 4 and Season 5. It will be depend on vacancies and caretaker preferences.

Player Age Breakdown
The ages of the original academy players were distributed to allow some of them to graduate within a couple of seasons.

Age	Number of Players
19	273
18	289
17	55

It's unclear from the rules whether that replacement players will always be 17.


The Academy Stars-How Good is Good?
In the US, College American Football has an entire industry tracking players in high school (age 14-18) and trying to guess which college will get them. We don’t have to deal whether Bubba McStuffin is going to take his talent to Ohio State or not. But when the first academy graduates are eligible next season, clubs will have to make some decisions:

• Promote and play
• Promote and sell
  • sell to another club
  • sell to SHN to raise cash
• Keep them in the Academy for one or two seasons

Here’s an idea of what is available at the end of the season. These players are all 19 years old and will be at the minimum age of 20 for next season. I'm showing the quantities in descending order of skill and Ab.

Keepers
Now St=21, Likely to be at 22	1
At St=21	13
At St=20, Likely to be 21	6
At 20	16

My comments: These guys are all better than my current backups, but could they be made monsters if they had two more years of academy?

Defenders
Now Tk=18	1
Now Tk=17	59

My comment: I can’t imagine pulling one of these players in next year.

Midfielders
Ps=18	2
Now Ps=17, Likely to be 18	2
Now Ps=17	43

My comment: The secondary skills may tempt you to pull them up, but I wouldn’t.

Forwards
Sh=18	1
Sh=17, Likely to be 18	2
Sh=17	48

My comment: They’re not done yet. Let them cook.

I hoped you enjoyed my survey of the Academy. Good luck with your trainees.




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