Brian McClair revealed his "simple" ideas to aid youth development of the Scottish game have been viewed as "radical" by some, following talks involving youth team bosses and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
The Scottish Football Association performance director presented the governing body's revamped vision for Scotland's young footballers along with chief executive Stewart Regan and Scotland boss Gordon Strachan.
The proposals include a "refinement" of the number of players in the SFA's Club Academy Scotland and reduction of centrally-funded teams. There are currently more than 2,300 players in 30 clubs.
The SFA also announced "more provision" for the seven regional academies and consultation with clubs over a draft loan system between Ladbrokes Premiership and Championship clubs.
It said a "working group will be convened to discuss the proposals in more detail and ensure collaboration between all constituent areas of the game".
After meeting officials of the Club Academy teams plus Sturgeon and Sports Minister Jamie Hepburn, McClair said: "The most important thing for me is that we all agree that we need to improve and that any future plans should put the development of the young player at the heart of everything we do.
"The principle is very clear and is founded on hard work on the pitch and off it. Interestingly, when I spoke to the Professional Game Board at the end of last year to share some of the ideas, the one word that came back was 'radical'. Sometimes the most radical changes are also the most simple.
"There is a lot of good work under way with the performance schools and with more outcome-focused investment in CAS but we need to address why our players stop developing at under-21 level and what the barriers are to playing regular football at the critical stage of development."
Strachan added: "I am Scotland national coach but I am also a father and grandfather and I care passionately about the state of our game and the future of our game.
"We need to get back to producing exciting players again, players who can be relied upon to start for their clubs at an earlier age, players who will then become more experienced and better prepared when it comes to international football.
"We need to be honest with ourselves when it comes to assessing where we are, where we want to be and how we get there. Brian and I were fortunate enough to play for top teams in Scotland and England and represent our country at major tournaments but the work was put in way before either of us made our first-team debuts."
Sturgeon said: "I welcome these proposals and we will work closely with the Scottish FA and SPFL to get Scottish football to where we all want it to be.
"We recognise football can be a powerful force for good and welcome the Scottish FA commitment to help deliver wider benefits to help improve health and well-being in our communities."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel