What are your experiences of football academies?

Football clubs recruit thousands of boys and girls into intensive training from the age of eight, but hundreds are released each year, with seemingly little concern for their welfare.
There are more than 12,000 boys and girls in the system but the opportunities for young players to be selected for clubs’ first teams have diminished as most overlook their young graduates, and instead buy from overseas. Though young players are often supported inside the system, the impact of being “let go” after being immersed in a club for several years can be devastating.
Academic research from Teesside university found in 2015 that 55% of players in the study were suffering “clinical levels of psychological distress” 21 days after being released. Dr David Blakelock, who conducted the study and who was himself a youth footballer at professional clubs, maintains the academy experience can narrow young boys’ perspectives into an “athletic identity,” in which they see themselves almost wholly as footballers, so they can suffer “a loss of self-worth and confidence” when that is taken away.
If you have been involved in youth football, we’d like to understand more about the pressures you have faced. Whether you have been selected as a young player and let go, or you’re a parent or family member and have experienced the system yourself. You may also work in youth football and have a view to share.

How much of your life was dedicated to the sport, did you feel prepared for a life after football? What assistance, if any, have you received since?
To get in touch, fill out the encrypted form below – anonymously if you prefer – and we will use a selection of your responses in our reporting. Only the Guardian has access to your contributions.
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SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94