Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Glen Williams

Cardiff City install succession plan after Man Utd and Leeds United swoop for young stars and offer 'unbelievable' wages

Cardiff City's conveyor belt of talent has seen top Premier League sides come calling over the last year.

Last summer, Charlie Crew was signed by Leeds United. This year, Gabriele Biancheri was snapped up by Manchester United. Goalkeeper Lewys Benjamin was the subject of serious interest from Manchester City before complications at his medical scuppered the move. Expect clubs to be interested again this summer, though.

It all comes from the fallout from Brexit, with laws now making it harder for clubs to prise the best youngsters from the continent, so, instead, they are looking inwards.

READ MORE: The transfer plan for Cardiff City's youngsters as loans needed

On the one hand, you might say, it is elevating good Welsh footballers to category one academies with far higher ceilings than Cardiff can fund at the moment. The players' sales are also pumping money into the club which is not insignificant.

On the other hand, of course, you have die-hard Cardiff fans who wish to see the most talented kids in the area stay with the club and burst into the first team, potentially netting them millions in the future.

But who can begrudge Cardiff accepting the bids? The potential combined fee for Crew and Biancheri, both 16 year olds, alone is more than Cardiff have made from senior player sales over the last two years. Indeed, without Kieffer Moore's sale to Bournemouth, it's longer than that.

And who would deny a young Cardiff player the opportunity to move to a category one academy, where the prospect of bagging higher-quality loans and better wages are on offer?

It's a tough one to toss up, but under-21s boss Darren Purse argues there's no use crying over spilt milk. Instead, he says, the club must be prepared for the inevitable and focus on the players who will still be at the club after the star name, so to speak, has gone and ensure they fill the void and become the No.1 prospects.

"You can look at it either way. There's no point crying about it – because it's happening," Purse said when asked about bigger clubs taking their best young talents.

"We have got to try and make the best of it that we can. It's something that's going to happen and something we need to work on.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but if a club is going to come in and take our best talent, our best one player, every year, maybe we need to start concentrating on the three, four, five who are behind that.

"If we concentrate on that and try to give every player in the academy the best education we can, if we do lose the top one then it is down to the next one to step up and become the top one.

"There is money coming into the football club, maybe if we kept hold of them for a couple more years, who knows whether or not they would make it as a professional within the football club, play 20 games and then we sell them on. Who knows?

"We just have to deal with the hand we are dealt, that's what's happening at the minute and we have to handle it the best way we can. Concentrate on the next two, three or four, because they are the ones who will come through to represent the under-21s and the first team."

Because while Cardiff would like to keep hold of their promising youngsters, many of whom they've nurtured since they were eight or nine years of age, Purse understands that money really does talk in this game.

With the riches that come with the Premier League, the trickle-down effect into those clubs' academies means they can throw more money at their youth system and Cardiff are unable to contest.

"That's the game," Purse said. "We can't get anywhere near, we cannot match the wages the boys are getting. You look at Charlie Crew at Leeds, I know roughly what he is on and he is on an unbelievable amount of money for a young, 16-year-old man.

"Even with us, if he signed a professional contract, he is nowhere near getting that level of money. So, who are we to stand in their way?

"It's not ideal, because we want to keep the best players in the academy that we can. It's the way the rules are and we just have to deal with that."

READ NEXT

Every Championship player released so far who Cardiff City could sign for free

Cardiff City announce retained list with four stars leaving and three others offered new deals

The transfer plan for Cardiff City's youngsters as loans needed after player refused January move but midfielder has setback

Steve Morison was in 'active conversations' with Cardiff City about returning

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.