The system: EPPP
Until 2012 English development was shaped by two rules that held it back. The 90-minute rule laid down that a club could only take in children who lived within 90 minutes' travel. And fees for youth players were negotiated before tribunals, which deterred clubs from letting talents go and others from taking them.
The EPPP changed both. The Premier League pushed it through in 2011, against resistance from many small clubs, and it came into force in 2012.
Categories. Academies are divided into four categories by infrastructure, coaching qualifications, support, schooling and a record of success. Category 1 is the highest and requires investment of several million pounds a year. The category determines which leagues the youth teams play in and how much training time is prescribed. Category 1 academies must offer players from U12 considerably more training hours than category 3 or 4.
Fixed fees. The EPPP laid down what a club pays for a youth player from another academy — graded by age and category, with sums that are often low for the selling clubs. That was the most contested point: small clubs felt expropriated, because big clubs could take their best twelve-year-olds for set amounts.
Lifting the 90-minute rule for category 1. Big academies have been allowed to scout nationwide since 2012. That has increased the concentration of talent at a few clubs.
Visibility. The EPPP introduced performance data, development plans and assessments controlled by the Premier League. Academies have to document what they do.
The record after more than ten years: English development has become markedly better. The youth national teams win tournaments, and the Premier League has more English regulars at a high level than before 2012. And the criticism has remained: the EPPP concentrated development at the richest clubs and took from the small clubs their role as developers.
What England does not have is the transition. There are no second teams in men's football. The U21 plays in Premier League 2 against other U21 sides. Since 2016 U21 teams have been allowed to enter the EFL Trophy against third-division clubs, which was meant as a substitute and is contested as such. The road for 19-year-olds runs through loans — and that is the point at which Chelsea perfected the system.
Chelsea: Cobham
Chelsea moved in 2004 to Cobham in Surrey, south-west of London, where the first team and the academy have trained at the same site ever since. The academy was run from 2004 to 2024 by Neil Bath, for twenty years — a continuity remarkable in the club's chaotic environment.
The output
Between 2010 and 2018 Chelsea won the FA Youth Cup seven times, five of them in a row, and the UEFA Youth League in 2015 and 2016. The list of graduates is the longest in England: Mason Mount, Reece James, Conor Gallagher, Trevoh Chalobah, Levi Colwill, Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Marc Guéhi, Tariq Lamptey, Billy Gilmour, Andreas Christensen, who arrived at 16 from Denmark, Nathan Aké, Dominic Solanke, Nathaniel Chalobah, Josh McEachran.
And those Chelsea did not keep: Declan Rice was released at 14 and went to West Ham. That is the case most often quoted in England when the limits of selection are discussed.
The loan model
Under Roman Abramovich, Chelsea developed a system unique in Europe: between 30 and 40 players were out on loan at the same time, in England and across Europe, at clubs from the Championship to the Bundesliga. A department of its own — the loan department — looked after them, attended matches, kept in contact, decided on return or sale.
The logic: because Chelsea has no second team in men's football and the first team consists of world-class players, the loan is the transition. A 19-year-old plays two years at Vitesse Arnhem, Reading or Derby, and Chelsea watches whether he matures. Mount went to Vitesse and Derby, Tomori to Brighton, Hull and Derby, Abraham to Bristol, Swansea and Aston Villa. All came back and became regulars.
The criticism of the loan model was loud: players were treated as assets, not as people. Many spent five or six years on loan without ever playing for Chelsea and were then sold. In 2022 FIFA limited the number of international loans per club, partly in response to Chelsea.
The sales policy since 2022
After the takeover by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in 2022, Chelsea's handling of the academy changed. The club bought young players for over a billion pounds — and at the same time sold home-grown players in series: Mount to Manchester United, Gallagher to Atlético Madrid, Chalobah loaned out, Colwill kept as an exception.
The reason is accounting. A self-developed player stands at zero in the books; his sale is pure profit. For a club wrestling with the Premier League's financial rules, home-grown players are the most efficient instrument for offsetting losses. Chelsea is not the only club that thinks that way — the City article describes the same — but it is the most consistent.
The academy keeps producing. In 2025 Chelsea won the Club World Cup with a squad containing hardly any home-grown players.
Arsenal: Hale End
Arsenal has two sites: Hale End in east London for the age groups U9 to U16 and London Colney north of the city for U17 upwards and the first team. Hale End is the name that stands for the development work, although the final step happens elsewhere.
The tradition
Liam Brady ran the academy from 1996 to 2014, eighteen years. From that period came Ashley Cole, Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, Alex Iwobi, Chuba Akpom, Héctor Bellerín, who arrived at 16 from Barcelona. Arsène Wenger's 22 years as head coach gave the academy a playing idea that stayed stable: technical, combination-based, with trust in young players.
Since 2018 the academy has been run by Per Mertesacker, the former centre-back and world champion who moved straight into the role after retiring. Under him Arsenal has realigned the academy: smaller squads, individual development plans, a clearly formulated playing idea for every age group, more permeability to the first team.
The output
Arsenal's list is shorter than Chelsea's, but it has one difference: the best graduates play for Arsenal.
Bukayo Saka came to Hale End at seven, debuted in 2018 at 17 and has been a regular and a key player for years. Emile Smith Rowe became a regular before joining Fulham in 2024. Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock and Folarin Balogun became professionals, mostly elsewhere. Ethan Nwaneri debuted in 2022 at 15 as the youngest player in Premier League history. Myles Lewis-Skelly became a regular and an international at 18 in 2024/25.
That is not an accident but a club decision. Mikel Arteta, head coach since 2019, brings young players in when they are good enough, and unlike Chelsea, Arsenal has shaped its squad planning so that there is room for them. Saka, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly — three players from Hale End in a team competing for the title. Chelsea does not have that.
What Hale End does differently
Technical development with positional play. Since Wenger, Hale End has trained in a playing idea close to Spanish positional play. Arteta, himself a Guardiola pupil, has refined it. The youth plays what the professionals play.
Small squads, much attention. Mertesacker reduced the number of players per age group to give each of them more individual time. That is the Cruyff plan logic of Ajax, in London.
The club as a family. Arsenal emphasises the bond: Saka has described Hale End as his second family, Mertesacker speaks of developing people. That is Freiburg's language in one of the richest leagues in the world.
Selling less. Arsenal has sold home-grown players — Smith Rowe, Balogun, Nelson — but not as a business model. The best stay.
The comparison
| Chelsea Cobham | Arsenal Hale End | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | The largest in England | Medium |
| In its own first team | Little, since 2022 almost nothing | Saka, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly |
| Transition | Loan model | Direct route, if good enough |
| Academy leadership | Neil Bath 2004–2024 | Liam Brady 1996–2014, Mertesacker since 2018 |
| Role in the club | Revenue stream | Part of squad planning |
| Best-known mistake | Releasing Declan Rice | Few, because squads are smaller |
| Youth titles | 7 FA Youth Cups 2010–2018, 2 Youth Leagues | Fewer |
What the comparison shows: Chelsea develops better if you measure output. Arsenal develops better if you ask what for. Both paths are legitimate. But only one produces players who want to win titles in their own shirt.
The criticism
The EPPP concentrated development. Clubs in the third and fourth divisions that used to develop talents and sell them for real fees today receive fixed amounts when a category 1 club takes their best twelve-year-olds. Many have shrunk or closed their academies. Brentford's decision of 2016 is a consequence of that.
Too much, too early, too rich. Category 1 academies take children in at eight, give them infrastructure professionals in other countries do not have, and produce players who are millionaires at 18 before playing a professional match. The criticism of pampering and missing hardness is loud in England.
No transition. The gap between the U21 and the Premier League is bigger in England than anywhere else in Europe, because there are no second teams in men's football. Loans are the substitute, and a poor one, because the borrowing club uses the player rather than developing him.
The academy as a balance-sheet item. Chelsea and City have made a financial instrument out of home-grown players. That is legal and efficient. It is not what development should be, and it changes how clubs think about young players.
The national team profits, the clubs less so. With Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Rice and Palmer, England has a generation among the best in the world. But most of them do not play for the club that developed them.
Application: what you can take from it
This section is our interpretation.
England is the case showing that money makes development better — and that it is not enough.
Smaller squads, more attention
Mertesacker's reform at Arsenal is the Cruyff plan logic. For amateur clubs: a U15 with 22 players gives each of them less than two teams of 14 each would. If the coaches are there for it, two teams are the better development.
The released player is not finished
Declan Rice was released by Chelsea at 14 and became an international. That is the same lesson as at Brentford and Freiburg, with the most prominent example. If a player comes to you from a performance centre, look at him yourself. The selection was not the end of his development.
The question of what for
Chelsea develops in order to sell. Arsenal in order to play. An amateur club should know which answer it gives. Whoever wants to develop players for their own first team has to shape the first team's squad planning so that there is room — as Arsenal does. Whoever does not is developing for the neighbouring club, like it or not.
A loan is not a transition
The English model shows what happens when the transition is missing. A 19-year-old who goes to another club to play is used there, not developed. Whoever can shape the transition themselves — a second team, dual registration, targeted appearances — should do it.
Document
The EPPP forced English academies to write down what they do: development plans, assessments, training content. That is bureaucratic and effective. A club that can say after a season what every player trained and how he developed makes better decisions than one that knows it by instinct.
What to take away
- In 2012 the EPPP ordered English development into categories, fixed fees for youth players and freed up scouting. Development got better, but concentrated at a few clubs.
- Chelsea Cobham produces more professionals than any other English academy — through a loan model and, since 2022, with systematic selling. Hardly any of them plays for Chelsea.
- Arsenal Hale End produces fewer, but Saka, Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly play for Arsenal. Mertesacker reduced squad sizes and increased permeability.
- England has no transition in men's football. Loans are the substitute, and a poor one.
- The academy as a balance-sheet item is the flip side of the money.
- Transferable: smaller squads, look at released players, know what you are developing for, shape the transition yourself, document.
The EPPP forces English academies to do what Coach OS does for any club: write down what was trained and how a player developed. What the club makes of it is the actual development.
FAQ: frequently asked questions
Sources and further reading
- Premier League: documentation of the Elite Player Performance Plan and the academy categories.
- Michael Calvin: No Hunger in Paradise: The Players. The Journey. The Dream — on English youth development after the EPPP, critically.
- Interviews with Neil Bath on the Chelsea academy and the loan model.
- Interviews with Per Mertesacker on the realignment of Hale End since 2018.
- Reports on Chelsea's sales policy since 2022 and on the accounting treatment of home-grown players.
- CIES Football Observatory: reports on English developing clubs.
A note on the evidence: neither club publishes a curriculum. The description of the development work rests on statements from around the clubs and on graduate profiles. Transfer fees are base amounts according to media reports.