Lyon Are Also Becoming Baby Poachers

By: Inara | November 12th, 2008

Readers of this blog will know how much I detest Arsene Wenger and his policy of stealing the youth players of other clubs. I know other clubs do it too (Chelsea is another notable example), but Arsenal do it every other day. In fact, I protested this post that praised Arsenal’s youth system chiefly because Arsenal’s youth system is really just Arsene systematically purchasing well known young prospects from other clubs.

I don’t like this at all, and I fully support Michel Platini’s call for helping clubs protect their homegrown talent. It’s not fair when a club spends a lot of time and money into developing a player, and then losing him for pennies because the labor laws in their countries prevent them from signing players to pro-contracts until they reach a certain age. I remember how annoyed I was when Arsenal came sniffing around Clement Grenier last year.

So you can imagine my horror this morning when I was confronted by two pieces of news. First, Lyon have just signed Ishak Belfodil, a 16 year old Algerian attacker from Clermont-Ferrond. Belfodil was also wanted by Chelsea, who sign young French players for fun these days.

Adam Maher (left) is still just a child.

The second piece of news is that Lyon are in hot pursuit of Adam Maher, a 15 year old midfielder at AZ Alkmaar. Apparently, Remi Garde has been to the Netherlands several times to observe him, and now Lyon want to take advantage of the fact that AZ can’t sign Maher to a pro-contract until he’s 16. Lyon are offering Maher a five year contract and have also offered his parents employment (a tactic Lyon have undoubtedly learned from Real Madrid).

This is HORRIBLE. Have Lyon decided that if they can’t beat the big European clubs at their game, they might as well join in? I mean, French teams stealing from Dutch teams is like poor people stealing from homeless people. This is bad manners, Lyon. Bad. And no, paying rock bottom transfer fees doesn’t count.

Of course, Lyon aren’t totally following in Arsenal’s footsteps here, as these kind of signings are still rather rare for the club. For the most part, Lyon are focusing on their own academy and are intent on promoting their own homegrown players. This season alone, Claude Puel has given Anthony Mounier, Lamine Gassama, and Sebastien Faure chances to shine. But my fear is that Lyon will steal homegrown talent of other clubs with greater frequency in the coming years, especially since they have the financial muscle and the appeal to bring in players like Maher. Also keep in mind that OL recently snapped up 17 year old Timothée Kolodziejczak from Lens last summer.

And while I applaud anything that makes Lyon stronger, I worry this behavior portends a bad future for Ligue 1 as a whole. It’s hard to take the moral high ground if French clubs, who constantly bemoan losing their youth, do it themselves. Those safeguards to protect homegrown talent may never materialize if Lyon continue to set a bad example for the rest of the league.

Some Related Lyon Posts:

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Evilo

Yoann Gourcuff :

"Mais je n'oublie pas mes années passées là-bas, et je remercie le Stade Rennais de m'avoir permis de progresser, au sein de l'un des meilleurs centres de formation de France (le meilleur en 2007-08, selon la FFF, NDLR), qui arrive à sortir beaucoup de jeunes professionnels. C'est vraiment un bon club, qui possède de bons éducateurs, et qui figure parmi les meilleurs de Ligue 1."
Evilo

Erh, no what I mean is that Créteil has good youth teams and a vast potential because their scouting is much easier than Auxerre.
However, Auxerre develops more prime players because 1/ they have more money to sign hyped youngsters (we'll get back to that later) and 2/ because they're a better academy.

And your point about PSG is exactly what I've said : it takes more than financial power (because PSG has more than Auxerre for example) and scouting to have a good academy.
It has to get good teaching.

For instance, Diaby was a member of PSG's youth teams.
Yet has he developped into a PSG player? No. Because he chose the quality of Auxerre's teaching.
Shazback

And how many of Auxerre's players come from Auxerre? In fact, how many of Auxerre's players come from Creteil (or the Creteil area)?

After all, take a player like Abou Diaby. He grew up in the Paris area, and from there was taken into the INF. When he's coming to the end of the INF training, he's 15, he's one of the best players his age in France... So when Creteil turn up alongside Auxerre, PSG and Marseille, they don't even get a sideways glance. Afterwards, Auxerre have a good record of trusting young players, and they have good trainers, so the conditions are better than at Paris, Lyon or Marseille, and a lot better than Creteil (where he would probably become their most important player by the time he can grow a proper beard).

It's kind of a false argument. If your argument was even half-right, then PSG should set up a youth structure of high quality (too bad if it costs an arm and a leg), and with over a sixth of the French population within a few hours, they would be winning leagues like there's no tomorrow... Just imagine if every player from the Paris area still played for Paris : Anelka, Henry, Saha, Briand, Ben Arfa, Makelele, Dacourt, Diaby, Gallas, Evra, Piquionne, Boumsong, Diarra (Alou and Lassanna), Gouffran, Bellion, Cheyrou (both), Wiltord, Rothen, Vieira, Yohann Pele... There are probably a lot more, too.
Evilo

Nah, the reason the other guy didn't sign in Caen was that he was not too bright, schooling wise.
At the time, Caen had a very strict policy regarding results.
Of course, that has changed... ;)

Would you say Créteil has a better academy than Auxerre?
Because they have one of the most impressive youth talent crop of the world at their disposal, and yet Auxerre builds more pro players.
See, not all has to do with the prime element.

It's like the discussion about the "innée" and "acquis".
You can put two twins in two different families, they might have the same genetics, the same talents, but one will realize it better in Family A with better teachers than in Family B with average teachers.
Shazback

And the contrary is almost just as frequent... (Even though the most promising players from the INF join generally better academies and better clubs, since they're "in demand").

Here's just a few of the players who went through the INF, joined good academies, but ultimately didn't fulfil their talent : Lionel Mathis (joined Auxerre, never grew beyond just being a good D2 player), Reynald Lemaitre (joined Caen, just an average D1 player), Jacques Faty (joined Rennes, spent five good seasons and played 150 games, before joining Marseille and becoming instantly useless)... And this is only those that the INF talk about, since they recognise that of the 22 students that they have in each year, only 6 or 7 sign pro contracts.

Perhaps the difference between Frederic Nee and the other guy was very plainly how hard he worked... If the other guy had lots of talent but didn't work hard in training, he would have flopped at Caen (and better academies than Ales probably didn't offer him a place exactly for that reason), whilst someone less talented but who works hard can succede far better (hence Caen taking on Frederic Nee and Ji-Sung Park becoming a professional footballer).