More Cuts In Academy Funding
Last updated : 22 February 2006 By Covsupport
The future of Coventry City's Academy and those at other Football League clubs are hanging in the balance.
Originally, the brainchild of Howard Wilkinson, the Academy and Centre of Excellence Development system last season provided 600 players in the Football League. Each club can receive a maximum grant of £138,000 for their Academy. However, this figure is likely to be drastically cut after the PFA announced they were no longer paying £1.25m a year to help fund the scheme and the Government have withdrawn their support of £1.5m a year as well as ensuring that Sport England also withdraw their £1m a year imput.
Why the Government have pulled this funding from the clubs is due to plans by New Labour to make the whole country more active rather than funding elite groups like professional footballers.
Speaking to David Conn from the Guardian, a spokesman from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: "This is a good scheme but we don't do anything similar for any other sport. "Football is very cash rich so should be able to fund this itself."
So what are the plans for Coventry City's Academy? To be honest,we don't know, the Sky Blue Trust who have raised funds for the Academy don't know and those involved with the Academy don't know.
The only person who does is Acting Chairman Geoffrey Robinson. But as yet,has not announced his plans for the club and present the annual accounts to shareholders at an EGM. Until such time, it's business as usual with Watford's U18's and U16's coming to the Alan Higgs Centre on Saturday to face the Sky Blues.
