SCOTLAND'S Commissioner for Children and Young People, Tam Baillie, will recommend statutory regulation to protect the rights of boys in Club Academy Scotland should the Scottish FA and SPFL fail to address alleged imbalances in the pro-youth system.

Baillie's appearance in front of the petitions committee at Holyrood yesterday owed much to the persistence of two men. Willie Smith and Scott Robertson are the founders of the Real Grass Roots campaign, as well as being leading lights in Hillwood Boys Club and Musselburgh Windsor FC respectively.

Part I: Why pro-youth scheme is failing Scottish football 

Smith's achievement in providing half a century of football for boys - and now girls - in Glasgow's south side will be formally recognised by the city council at a dinner next year. He formed Hillwood in 1966, while in the east Robertson has been involved with Musselburgh for a quarter of a century.

Deeply concerned at the adverse effect the Youth Initiative (now Club Academy Scotland) was having on clubs affiliated to the Scottish Youth Football Association, they presented a public petition to the Scottish Parliament.

That was in 2010, and their petition is now the second-longest running in Holyrood's history. Smith and Robertson have spent a long time waiting to see if the legislators will seize the moment and force Scotland's senior clubs to reform Club Academy Scotland.

That the clubs themselves have no inclination to do it was obvious from the disdainful attitude of SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster when he was called in front of the petitions committee last year to give evidence. His performance did not go down well with Smith, whose former Hillwood players include Alex McLeish, Kenny Burns, Owen Coyle and Peter Lawwell.

"Unlike the Scottish FA, whose chief executive Stewart Regan and past president Campbell Ogilvie have been more than willing to sit down and talk with us, we have had minimal co-operation from Mr Doncaster," Smith pointed out. "We get the impression that the SFA would like to help the grassroots clubs, but their hands are tied because they are a members' organisation. It is the SPFL clubs who are calling the shots in Club Academy Scotland."

While Smith and Robertson were initially most concerned with the amount of boys being sucked out of grassroots football and into the pro-youth system - last season CAS had a capacity for just under 3200 boys - they became increasingly aware of what they describe as abuses within the system.

Among these are the considerable training compensation fees due if a boy moves from one CAS club to another (condemned by even Celtic and Rangers as a "children's transfer market"). Another cause for concern is that the one-year registration form signed by 15-year-old boys automatically triggers a further two year option for the Club Academy Scotland clubs.

Although the petitions committee is moving with all the urgency of the Chilcott Inquiry, it asked the Children's Commissioner to compile a report looking into the petitioners' complaints. His findings endorsed what Smith and Robertson were alleging, and yesterday he told the committee he wanted to see action.

Speaking exclusively to the Herald afterwards, Baillie said: "There's a perverse incentive for the senior clubs to scoop up as many young players as possible in the hope that they might get money for some of them.

"The more we see these young boys as packages to be traded all the way through their childhood, the less likely we are to honour their right for decisions to be taken in their best interests. When there is a dispute and one of the clubs refuses to pay compensation, the child can be left with no club to play for. That is just wrong and it shouldn't be happening.

"I'm suggesting compensation should only kick in, and be paid, at the point where a young adult signs a professional contract with another club.

Part III: The damning evidence 

"I'm also concerned about 15-year-olds signing a registration form who can be held to that against their wishes for a further two years. This is not only restricting the freedom of movement of the child, it is also treating them as commodities. That some Club Academy Scotland clubs don't allow their boys to play schools football also seems an unnecessary restriction."

Baillie now says it is time for the talking to stop and for the footballing authorities to start taking action.

"We sent copies of our report to the SFA and the SPFL," he said. "We received an acknowledgement from the SFA, but got no communication back from the SPFL.

"I've urged the petitions committee to formally write to these two governing bodies seeking their views on the recommendations in our report.

"Either there has to be robust self-regulatory suggestions from both of them - or, if the clubs and the SFA are not capable of policing themselves, we need to consider the need for statutory regulation of our youth academies."