Losing young players to top-flight giants &#8211; and why Millwall are up against it in a murky world

By John Kelly IT was a statement that sounded like it could have been issued in the summer of 2022. Millwall Football Club “reluctantly accepted” that one of their brightest prospects had decided to move on to a UK giant at the age of 16. The Lions would receive compensation and “benefit substantially” should the player establish himself as a first-team regular or subsequently move on for a fee. The manager said the club were “very disappointed” to be losing a player “we believe had the potential to become a first-team player here and he would have turned professional with us on his 17 th birthday. “It is always a gamble for a young player to move to a big club at such a young age, but [his] parents made it clear that the family felt it was the right move for him. “My view is that if a player has the ability, the best way of reaching the top level is to gain valuable first-team experience at an early age and then move on in due course. “We have a number of other exciting prospects in our Academy and I look forward to seeing them develop during the coming season.” It wasn’t Zak Lovelace’s controversial move to Glasgow Rangers last summer that Millwall were making a statement on. Nor the transfers of then-14-year-old midfielder Darko Gyabi to Manchester City in November 2018 and winger Samuel Edozie, then 16, to the Premier League side in July 2019. It remains to be seen the impact 17-year-old Lovelace will make at Rangers and the potential financial boost for Millwall. The Lions have already netted windfalls from sell-on clauses included in the deals that took Gyabi and Edozie to City for around a combined £3million. Last summer, Gyabi joined Leeds United for a reported £5million and Edozie signed for Southampton for a reported £10million. The gambles that then-Millwall boss Willie Donachie spoke about above when a young player moves to a big club having yet to make a senior first-team appearance look, so far, to have paid off for Gyabi and Edozie. Both have benefited from spending almost four and three years, respectively, in the City coaching system. Both will now have better chances of getting in their new clubs’ first teams than they would have had they stayed at City – though Edozie did make his debut in the 2021 Community Shield – not to mention both will be on very healthy salaries. Millwall have seen their bank balance substantially boosted by the sales of the two players to City and then their moves to Leeds and Southampton, though there is obviously that what-might-have-been feeling. Perhaps 19-year-old Gyabi and 20-year-old Edozie would be current stars in Gary Rowett’s team and eying a promotion challenge. Speaking to NewsAtDen after losing Gyabi, Millwall manager at the time Neil Harris said, “when Man City come calling it's very difficult to make players want to stay”. It was Liverpool who came calling for David Amoo in the summer of 2007. Amoo, a 16-year-old attacker, had just scored nine goals in 20 games for Millwall under-18s in the 2006-07 season. Amoo was a rapid player. He finished fourth in the English Schools 100 metres final in 2005. At Liverpool he reached the 2009 FA Youth Cup final and was given a two-year deal in 2010 as he edged towards first-team involvement. But Amoo’s senior first-team experience at Liverpool amounted to just one start when he played 84 minutes in a 2-0 Europa League third qualifying round first-leg win away against North Macedonia club Rabotnicki in July 2010. He was as an unused substitute for a League Cup tie with Northampton. And that was it. Amoo left Liverpool after the expiry of his deal in 2012. He was still only 21 and went on to have a decent career, making over 300 appearances for teams including Preston, Tranmere and Cambridge United and in 2022-23 was at Stevenage. Players and their families come under pressure when the powerhouses of the football agency world come circling. It’s hard to blame them for being tempted by what’s offered, both material and the promise of a breakthrough at a big club. But what really happens when a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old makes a name for himself alerting interested parties of his potential? What kind of pressures do they and their families come under? NewsAtDen wanted to know more about what goes on when agencies vie to get players on their books. We spoke to two in the industry who have been involved in multi-million pound deals for senior players. The agents also know what happens around young players, the race for their signature every bit as intense as clubs trying to sign players. Getting in the ears and heads of fathers and mothers and family. All sorts of promises. Cash payments, which often aren’t all they seem. The odd car here and there. It is an often murky world. It’s important to note that the agents we spoke to were not involved in any of the deals mentioned above. We started with the example of Lovelace, who has only played 16 senior minutes for Rangers. We wanted to know why a player like that would leave the Lions, where he would surely be featuring regularly for a side with top-six ambitions. And what happens to young players when they go to big clubs and why it doesn’t work out. “There are financial incentives offered, backhanders,” the agent said. “We recently signed one young guy, one of the brightest talents in the country when he was coming through. He signed for [a Premier League club] and fell off a cliff. “And he’s a bright boy, from a good family with good people around him. It’s a different pressure when they go to these clubs. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. “The financial benefits are potentially big, it can be 5-10k a week first contract. It’s about the finance for the player as much as the football. Status, ego comes into it, the delusion of getting a certain amount of match minutes. “We always tell our young players if you’re close to the first team just stay there. We tell them, ‘get 50 to 100 games under your belt and then when the bigger clubs come calling you’ll have that experience behind you and be in a better position'.” [caption id="attachment_121354" align="aligncenter" width="964"] Former Millwall attacker Zak Lovelace. Photo: Millwall FC[/caption] It’s not revealing some secret to say the business in which agents operate is cut-throat. This source says that even within the same companies agents try to nick players from each other. Players are offered cash and gifts to commit to an agency. “It’s gone on for time immemorial. I know of one agent who bought a player a car. You’ve got all these parents on the payroll of the company – scouts, for example, in inverted commas. “We lost a player because another agent gave him £100,000 in cash. This agency decided, ‘right, we’re just going to go around buying players’.” What about the tax implications for that player? “I don’t know how they get around it. And there was a case where a player subsequently left an agency and the agency said, ‘that was a loan, you have to pay us back’. Then they could produce all the paperwork to prove it. But the player hadn’t known that.” Is that frustrating for agents who are abiding by the regulations? “Very frustrating. But, having said that, we don’t want to work with players like that. If we gave a player 20k, they would then go to someone else if they were offered 30k. “There are guys who are doing extra – inverted commas – training sessions with the boys. Outside of the club hours they’re doing coaching sessions with them to improve their skills. The agent would be paying for it for them. The agent and trainer are in cahoots with each other, the trainer is basically babysitting the player for the agent and buttering them up so that as and when the stage when he can sign, he’ll go, ‘yeah, I want to be with this agent. He’s got me in this training programme, I really trust this trainer – I’m going to sign with this agent.’” Rangers have had success in recent seasons in targeting young players from the English leagues. Connor Goldson from Brighton, Joe Aribo from Charlton and Ryan Kent from Liverpool, Calvin Bassey from Leicester and Charlie McCann from Manchester United joined in successive summers. They made huge profits on Aribo and Bassey when they moved to Southampton for £10million and Ajax Amsterdam for £20million, respectively. In the summer of 2022, as well as Lovelace, Rangers brought in another highly-rated 16-year-old, forward Archie Stevens from AFC Wimbledon. The other agent has knowledge of how the club work and outlined the attraction for players of moving to the Scottish capital. “They do well with their promotion to entice players to come and sign with them,” the agent said. “It’s quite impressive and what they’re giving them the promise of is, year on year, Champions League football; getting into the team at a young age; winning titles; increasing their profile so they can get back to England very quickly, to a top club; or, alternatively, use it as a platform to go to a club in Europe who are going to be playing Champions League every year or at least in European competition. “That’s where they’re using the angle and it’s easier for foreign players to get into Scotland than to get into England. They’ll also be using the angle, ‘well, this league is going to improve considerably over the new few years due to Brexit, players aren’t going to be going as much to England as they are to Scotland, etc., etc'.” [caption id="attachment_121355" align="aligncenter" width="636"] Ex-Lions midfielder Darko Gyabi[/caption] The first agent believes the regulation is there to stop the big agencies hoovering up the best young talent and then attempting to instigate moves away from clubs like Millwall to giants like Liverpool and Rangers. But the agent explained why there is currently little hope for change. “By virtue of the working in the agents’ regulations you are not allowed to do anything to either directly or indirectly entice that player to come and sign with you. I would argue that by getting a coach, by getting a conduit, by indirectly approaching that player or that player’s family, you are breaching those regulations. I think that would be a very strong argument. “However, how do the FA govern that, regulate that, keep tabs on that? I think it’s incredibly hard for them and they don’t have the manpower or resources to do that. So I don’t think that will change.” It was unpalatable for Millwall fans to accept that Lovelace gave up the chance of regular first-team football to move to Scotland where his opportunities were going to be restricted. But so much happens behind the scenes. Most players also come from modest financial backgrounds so the financial packages on offer are understandably tempting. Lions supporters will just have to think what might have been had Lovelace, Edozie and Gyabi been lining up in the same team this season. And with an exceptionally promising bunch of under-21s coming through under Kevin Nugent after excellent work by the youth coaches, it probably won’t be the last time they see a prized asset lured away.

Losing young players to top-flight giants – and why Millwall are up against it in a murky world

The Lions saw Zak Lovelace join Glasgow Rangers and Darko Gyabi and Samuel Edozie go to Manchester City

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