EFL Futures gives cash boost to clubs

[Joe Jones]

From the EFL site:

The EFL Futures scheme has given a £750,000 boost to those Football League clubs who introduced young English players into their starting line up in 2016-17.

The incentive scheme came into force for the beginning of this year and was designed to commit a total of £2.25m to the three tiers for those clubs who actively gave game time to players aged under 21 and eligible to play for England (or Wales for Cardiff City and Newport County).

With all appearance data now collected and collated, those numbers have been assessed and the EFL have distributed the first batch of that incentive money out to qualifying teams.

Interestingly but probably not surprisingly, clubs in League One and League Two benefited more than Championship clubs with a total pay out of:

League Two = £304,000
League One = £294,000
Championship = £152,000

In the year of 2016/17 almost 10% of appearances made across the three tiers were made by eligible youngsters with those appearances being made by 322 players from a pool of approximately 2,500 registered players across the three divisions.

80% of all under 21 appearances were made by players who qualified for the EFL Futures fund.

No information as to how much money each individual club got, however.

Thoughts about this scheme?

[Chris]

It sounds good actually, I like the focus on League Two.

The Championship makes money, clubs there tend to throw it a way easily - so I think its pretty fair. Yet, I don't think it should be focused on them solely playing youths but how they support their development. I don't want to see youngsters being rushed in any sort of effort for a club to profit, which I can see happening sadly.

[Magic magpie]

With the England first team in poor form I say this is required and the young ones who won the World Cup coming from this sort of football so a injection of cash will help the next generation of English players.

[Fozzy]

Would like to know how much we received as we introduced two, or three young players who made a start last season.

This seems to tie in with Alan Hardy's plans to have more local talent in the side, not only a revenue stream from selling on the players eventually, but also from the EFL?