Just 0.

[lappinitup 629]

"Ipswich Town have today been informed that their application for Category One academy status has been rejected.

Following a complex audit in May, carried out by an independent

Belgian company, the Blues fell short of the required 75% result by just

0.3%.

Former Ipswich chief executive Simon Clegg voted against

the Elite Player Performance Plan in 2011, insisting that the new system

had been designed as a closed shop for the top Premier League clubs.

Premier

League chairman Richard Scudamore threatened to withdraw solidarity

payments to Football League clubs if EPPP wasn’t introduced though and

the system was voted in by 46 votes to 22.

Town initially opted

for Category Two status, leading to more than 5,000 supporters signing a

petition, and last season the Blues vowed to spend thousands on

upgrading their staff numbers, facilities and infrastructure in order to

apply for top-level Category One status.

When applying last July,

the club announced a bold plan – that 50% of the first team squad will

be academy graduates by 2017. At that time, supporters and local

business were asked to donate money

to the academy to help with running costs – estimated to be £2.5m a

year for Category One clubs, though that money falls outside of the

limitations put on owner investment under new Financial Fair Play rules.

Ipswich’s

audit was carried out in May and, earlier this month, Town managing

director Ian Milne said the club’s continued wait on a decision was ‘frustrating and ridiculous’, while he slammed the new system as ‘slightly disorganised’ and ‘a little bit of a mess’.

The

benefits of Category One status include membership in an elite Under-21

league and the ability to recruit players from further afield.

The Premier League website’s official EPPP information page

states that ‘academies will be independently audited and given a

Category status of 1 to 4, with 1 being the most elite. Up to 10

different factors will be considered in the grading, including

productivity rates; training facilities; and coaching, education and

welfare provisions. The higher a club’s Category the more funding will

be available to it and the EPPP will see the Premier League and FA

invest more central income than ever before in Youth Development

programmes across the country.’

Championship clubs Bolton,

Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Wolves all have Category One

status, while Derby and Brighton have applied."

Shame! [:D][:D][:D]

[lappinitup 629]

Should''ve read Just 0.3%. [:$]

[Mr Jenkins 0]

Dont worry lapps, the point is they just aint good enough!

[Bill 1,788]

i don;t think the wider implications of this may be grasped by allWhilst it is easy to laugh at the dimwits for their belief, nigh certainty, that they were to have a Cat 1 acadamy we should maybe look at what it meams.Firstly it will mean that clubs like City can hoover up any talent from clubs like the binners with relatively minimum compensation, and promising players will gravitate towards cat 1 and away from Cat 2 (3 & 4) clubs. we are now only just beginning to see the benefits of the long term investment with players coming through to the first team. Conversely the paupers are now reaping their lack of investment with virtually no one emerging. there best prospect is a lad rejected by us. Given ME''s year by year running down of their youth system there is every thought that they might pull the plug on the lot.Secondly this must finally demonstrate to even the dimmest of the dim that ME has no interest in the youth system or even the club itself come to that. As the attendances and income slide year on year and the debt rises year on year there will come a point where the plug will have to be pulled. For the moment it can only be presumed that the suggested offsetting tax scheme is profitable enough to keep this zombie club going - much as Dracula might keep a body in a coffin.But what happens when the blood has been drained dry, which poorman road is looking very to close to at the moment ?

[TIL 1010 5,246]

I thought Portman King would have been along by now. [:P]

[morty 0]

[quote user="TIL 1010"]I thought Portman King would have been along by now. [:P][/quote]Any minute I reckon, and he''ll justify this by it somehow falling with Financial fair play.[:)]

[morty 0]

Just looked on TWTD, and they are all carping on about how its all so unfair, and apparently they missed out by 0.3% (whatever that means)Theres a massive penny dropping for a few that they tried to do it on the cheap, and failed.Bless[:)]

[Thorny 0]

What if they scrapped in by 0.3%? If they are upset by that then what do they think about two key points:

How many bums on seats per game each season?

How many points obtained per season?

If their youth is any good, they''d be better than their first team and pushing to the play offs. But if I recall correctly they sell off quickly for money which ends up where?

Some fans complain how our club is run but seriously they need to look others around us.

[Bill 1,788]

or by conning their fansas here

"Ipswich Borough Council councillor Alasdair Ross said: “It seems to me

this is certainly not the behaviour you would expect of your local

football club."

but Alasdair, it iswhen your club is ipswich towna club where the chairman was reassuring suppliers that they would get paid, days before they went bankrupt, where he got up at the club''s AGM a couple of months before they went bankrupt and assured the assembled dimwits that the club was on a sound financial footing ........ even though they had already defrauded a few million from HMRCa grubby, grubby little club

[morty 0]

[quote user="Thorny"]What if they scrapped in by 0.3%? If they are upset by that then what do they think about two key points:

How many bums on seats per game each season?

How many points obtained per season?

If their youth is any good, they''d be better than their first team and pushing to the play offs. But if I recall correctly they sell off quickly for money which ends up where?

Some fans complain how our club is run but seriously they need to look others around us.[/quote]Its amusing that when Marcus Evans arrived they were all waving tenners at us, like they were off on some amazing, cash fuelled Premiership dream.Longest serving club in the Championship, massively in debt with no money to spend.That worked out well, didn''t it?[:)]

[Bill 1,788]

Uunfortunately the dimwitted farmhands didn''t actually read the letter sent out by the red faced shyster - no glib sh ite here. This was the asset stripping in the raw................. hereSure it had old guff like this"He has also confirmed to the Board his admiration for the Academy

and the Community Trust and is committed to supporting these two

cornerstones of the Club".But basically it was simply a case of '' red face has dropped you right in the sh it and I am going to make the most of it''.

[Bill 1,788]

ooooopsmaybe here

[Mr Jenkins 0]

They will never hang on to any decent youth players, they will always come to us if they''re any good.

[Brightside 0]

[quote user="lappinitup"]Should''ve read Just 0.3%. [:$][/quote]

But "Just 0" sums up the binners much better! : )

[Gingerpele 0]

City 1st I think you should change your name to Ipswitch 1st...

You seem to rarely post about anything else. It''s just odd. Do you support Norwich just so you can sped all your time pointlessly hating another club?

[Yelloow Since 72 56]

Shame about their Academy status!

[Bill 1,788]

More now emerges which suggest that the paupers were given time after the initial audit in April but still fell below what is needed.As usual it is ''smoke and mirrors'' when it comes to money at poorman road.They were tasked with raising £500,000 a year from sponsors but fell way below that that, in fact they only scrapped together £230,000 which suggest not everyone in the land of bin feels well disposed towrads a club that previously robbed them. That the club are now claiming that Marcus Evans wll underwrite any shortfall rather begs the question of why didn''t he stump up that money in the first place ?Does this impact on Norwich City beyond the obvious pee take for it''s fans ?YesIt means that City and other Cat 1 clubs can help themselves to any youngster at poorman road at minimal cost. It means that any youngster with apisiration as well as ability is going to see City as the first choice in East Anglia. An option that is already bearing fruit and will only serve to continue the ever widening gap between the two clubs.On our part it does mean that after the £750,000 grant we get we still have to find £1.75m per year to fund the Cat 1 youth academy. Would anyone dispute that Ruddy, Murphy, Lloza and Gafaita have not already repiad that investment - nevermind what will be due from Steer ?

[cornish sam 1,039]

On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?

[morty 0]

[quote user="cornish sam"]On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?[/quote]Well if you don''t maintain the standards set then its only right really that you lose your status. I should imagine club facilities will be inspected periodically, to make sure the standards are being maintained.

[cornish sam 1,039]

[quote user="morty"][quote user="cornish sam"]On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?[/quote]Well if you don''t maintain the standards set then its only right really that you lose your status. I should imagine club facilities will be inspected periodically, to make sure the standards are being maintained.

[/quote]

Yes, I would assume that, but is it a bell curve that says that only the best 20 (say) academies are cat 1 or is it all academies that meet a minimum level of cat 1? So could we end up with 50 cat 1 academies, and the rest cat 3 and 4?

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="cornish sam"]Yes, I would assume that, but is it a bell curve that says that only the best 20 (say) academies are cat 1 or is it all academies that meet a minimum level of cat 1? So could we end up with 50 cat 1 academies, and the rest cat 3 and 4?[/quote]Surely that has to be the aim for the long term success of ENGLISH football.

[Bill 1,788]

[quote user="cornish sam"]On a slight tangent (i.e. not making fun of our hard up neighbours) does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of cat 1 academies there can be, so should they somehow make the grade next time round would a current cat 1 lose that status?[/quote]I see your point - a test examiner once told me that there was no ''quota'' of passes. however coincidentally there were roughly the same number of passes and failures every weekI would imagine there might be a small element of this here, but agree with Laps thoughts

[cornish sam 1,039]

Yes lapps, I agree to an extent, but then won''t we just be back to the situation we were in before the 90 minute rule was introduced but with a bit more money being thrown at it? English football didn''t exactly burst with success then either...

I know that feeling city 1st, at work HR sweat there is no bell curves being applied to performance rating yet every team seems to have the same proportion of highest and lowest rated, odd that...

[morty 0]

Ipswich town are now worried that we are going to nick all their better players, article here.And we are holding player development sessions in Suffolk, including one just a three miles from Poorman road.Lol[:D]

[Bill 1,788]

that''s pretty much what I said above, earlier -"With that news coinciding with the Canaries launching player development

centres at three venues in Suffolk next month, Klug fears Ipswich could

lose out to their local rivals in the battle for the region’s top young

players."  EADT"It means that any youngster with aspiration as well as ability is going to see City as the first choice in East Anglia."  City1st

Those development centres are pretty much ''raiding parties''. What would we be saying if the binners were holding what are no more than  ''auditions'' in Gt Yarmouth, Kingls Lynn and Dereham ?I don''t think a lot of our fans appreciate the implications of the two clubs having different categories in youth development. The results were there to see last night, and couple of more years down the line they will be even more apparent.The gap just grows wider.

[Bill 1,788]

To follow up, the binners are today posting in regard to a suffolk lad being offered 12 weeks through the City development programme  -

"Town said they were going to come and watch him play , but never turned

up . Norwich have been emailing me and watched my boy twice and then

offered a trial "

"Presumably your son is known to ITFC thru Sat and/or Sunday matches and

presumably you have been having him trained by ITFC Development, thru

the charitable trust ?  .......................  "Nope none of that at all "

"Do Ipswich actually have a proper scouting network these days? I

coach an U''10 in the Colchester league and 4 of our boys have been

offered trials by Norwich, Peterborough & West Ham but I''ve not even

heard any whispers of Ipswich scouts at any games in our area. Two of

the boys have been offered places, so it''s not even as if they''re

randomly picking any player. Our keeper has been watched several times

and I rate him very highly so I emailed the club to try and let them get

him in for a trial before Norwich do but they haven''t watched him to

the best of my knowledge. Norwich & Peterborough seem to be very active in our area "

"For two seasons, now, Norwich City have been pro-active in sending

scouts into the deepest dark corners of enemy territory and a goodly

number of local lads have been passed thru these trialing schemes... "

"I was asking this a few weeks ago, I''ve friends who run u12 and u14

sides. Local sides Peterborough, Luton and Cambridge are very active

scouting and to a lesser extent Arsenal and West Ham in this area. "Sadly the biggest presence is Norwich who are extremely pro active, Ipswich presence is described as minimal to non existant. "

"One of the boys on this ACP got told it was being scrapped but wait for a

letter or a phone call but never heard from them again. He''s now in the

Norwich centre of Excellence and very highly rated. "

As said, the binners youth set up is virtually non existent...... how lucky they must be to have an ''Hinvestor'' "pumping the money in" as we are so frequently toldI can only imagine the hysteria on here if the roles were reversed and it was us in their shadow

[GrantsMoustache 0]

We are in the same division as Ipswich now, lets see how the league table looks after 10 games before we laugh at them.

We may have a far superior team on paper, better fans, bigger attendances, but we also have a big wage bill in a league where plenty of relegated teams struggle, could easily end up in a sticky situation ourselves if we don''t get promoted within two years.

[Bill 1,788]

nice of you to stick up for thembut I think you''ll find the thread is about the respective youth set upsand we are NOT in the same division as them in regard to that