Paul Prescott, Morten Larsen & Stephen Smith

Leaders Performance Podcast

More than 77 per cent of professional contracts in the Premier League and EFL are held by homegrown players.

It wasn’t always thus. “English clubs were basically funding talent development models in Spain or in Brazil because English talent wasn’t seen to be at the same level as players from those countries,” Paul Prescott, the Managing Director of the International Football Group, told this Kitman Labs podcast.

That situation persisted until recently and is starting to change in part due to the introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan [EPPP] in 2012.

“We are seeing that some of the decisions that were made maybe 10-12 years ago are beginning to bear fruit,” added Prescott, who was joined by Morten Larsen, the Head of Methodology & Development at Danish Superliga club Arhus, and Stephen Smith, the Founder of Kitman Labs.

Aarhus share the Premier League’s emphasis on talent development, albeit in different circumstances as Larsen explains [5:30].

“Denmark is a small country and the league is a small league,” he says.

“So there’s only one thing we can do to compete with the other clubs in Europe.”

Elsewhere, Smith sets out the differences in approach between leagues and clubs [16:25]; Larsen explains the impact of data on decision-making processes in the Aarhus academy [24:10]; and Prescott ponders whether EPPP was an outcome or a catalyst [36:30].