SINCE the days of the Busby Babes, Manchester United have placed heavy emphasis on youth development, and that policy continues as the club pours out talented teenagers through the academy system.

With its multi-million pound base, part of United's gigantic Trafford Training Complex at Carrington, the academy provides youngsters with better facilities than many Premiership professionals enjoy.

It has a full-size indoor training pitch housed in an ultra-modern building packed with the latest equipment and technology.

Everything seems rosy in the United garden, but according to Les Kershaw, the man behind the academy, life was much better without it!

"We invest more than '3m a year into it and we never wanted an academy in the first place," he said. "We feel we would do better if we didn't have one, but we have to be part of the system because you have to have somebody to play at football.

"If we found a way out that could better what we are doing, we would be out tomorrow."

Frankness

Such frankness might cause a stir within football's establishment but Kershaw speaks from experience. He has been involved with United's search for young talent since the early days of Sir Alex Ferguson's reign as manager and is adamant he knows the best approach.

The club's former chief scout, a former university lecturer in physical chemistry, reckons United were doing very nicely before being forced to take an alternative route.

"The academy scheme was launched in 1998 after Howard Wilkinson produced a blueprint about the future of developmental football," Kershaw said.

"The idea was to introduce a system to produce a future England team capable of winning a World Cup. The ideas were right and you cannot argue against that.

"Academies were created as elitist organisations and nobody made any apologies for that. By definition, elite organisations should be few and far between - there aren't a lot of Manchester Grammar Schools - but what they have done is dilute an elite product by having too many."

Restrictions


There are also restrictions governing the acquisition of players which United have found hard to handle.

Gone are the days when scouts would spot a youngster playing in London or the North East and offer them the chance of joining United. So no more David Beckhams or Sir Bobby Charltons.

Today older boys must live within 90 minutes' travelling distance of Old Trafford and those below 12 within an hour.

Decision

"You can only have local kids in your academy which means that the boy who lives further away has no chance of being a United player," Kershaw said. "Kids commit themselves to an academy at eight years of age and that is a career decision.

"The authorities argue that it isn't, but it is because from then on they all have a pound sign on their heads.

"Compensation has to be paid even for an eight or nine-year-old kid if he goes to another club, but there are no rules in place to tell you how much it is. Kids now are slaves to an immoral system which could be a good system but things are not being done properly. You can only take local kids and we have to scout heavily for the others."

Overseas scouting

Most of that scouting is done overseas with United finding a way through the tangle of red tape by importing talent from Europe. That has been shown this season as Italian forward Guiseppe Rossi, Spanish defender Gerard Pique and Belgian midfielder Floribert N'Galula have all tasted the big time at Old Trafford.

"Pique wasn't born within an hour of Manchester, and neither were Irish lads Darren Gibson or Johnny Evans, David Gray (Scotland), Floribert N'Galula (Belgium) or Jami Puustinen (Finland)," Kershaw said.

"We can look at a boy who is out of contract and take him on because we know what he is going to cost. That is not the case with English youngsters. At present there is a boy everybody is talking about who they reckon will go to Arsenal or Chelsea or maybe come to us. He is a very talented player but the cost element will be more than Rossi, Pique and N'Galula put together, and that will only be the start.

"If he makes his first team debut, gets an Under-21 cap and plays 10 senior games it could cost you '2m to '3m. That is about 20 times what we have paid for Rossi and Pique and that is why we scout internationally.

"Geoff Watson, Jimmy Ryan and other scouts are forever on aeroplanes bringing them in."

Cream of the crop

Kershaw is convinced those efforts will pay dividends. Despite the restrictions, he supports Sir Alex's claims that United possibly have their best-ever batch of young players coming through.

"Darren Gibson and Johnny Evans are doing well. Sylvain Blake is coming along fine and young Paul McShane is going to be a smashing player. There are goalkeepers like Luke Steele and Tom Heaton and boys who have already been in the first team squad like David Jones and Chris Eagles.

Kershaw faced another battle with the football authorities over allowing the Reds to concentrate on developing the technical skills of their youngest players.

"Under the new rules kids under 11 years of age cannot play 11-a-side football," he explained.

"The idea is the fewer players on the pitch the more touches of the ball a boy gets. His chances of learning are much better.

"What we have done, and we fought the authorities over this issue, is that with boys of eight and nine we play four-a-side so they get even more touches. We had trouble with the Premier League about doing this, but to be fair they have now come round to our way of thinking.

"All our kids from six to 11 are riddled with technical skill. They are all virtually as comfortable on their left side as on their right and all encouraged to dribble.

"Academies are full of `receive, pass, run for a space'. Smashing, but at Old Trafford we want somebody who says `receive the ball, now go and take on that full-back'. That applies to defenders as well.

Development

"This is where I make the analogy between an academy and Manchester Grammar School. We get great teachers in so that the coaches are first class and they stand up against anybody.

"Paul McGuinness is a good thinker and development man and the biggest single move I made was to take on Rene Meulensteen as a coach. He is the world's best coach for kids.

"I have got a massive amount of expertise. I have also got on board Tony Whelan, Mark Dempsey, and Eamonn Mulvey and none of them coach above 12 years old. That is where the mould is set."

Kershaw says the time has come for youngsters to once again be given freedom of choice.

"I feel that now academies have been running for six years, they should be independently graded and the results should go on a website so kids can see United is a Grade A academy because it invests in the product, has the most magnificent facilities, a wonderfully experienced, motivated staff and a fabulous welfare system.

"A kid will know he has a chance there. It is as simple as that, but they don't do it.

"United has always had a youth system and today it's alive, it's active and it is flourishing. We would certainly invest in the product whether we had an academy or not, but the academy is inhibitive."