Preserve this vital source of revenue

Chris Taylor: his skill should have earned Latics a windfall when he moved on

OF THE 18 players in Athletic’s match-day squad for Brentford on Saturday, five had made the journey from youth to first team.

The debate over the future (or otherwise) of the youth system has started, and has been framed as a pure business decision.

The club says it must find over £200,000 a season to fund its youth system. The question is: can that be justified, or should the money be put into the first-team budget?

Even setting aside becoming only the second of 72 league clubs to scrap its youth section – Wycombe were first – the financial argument for preserving, possibly expanding the current set-up is compelling.

Back to those five players from Saturday: two of them, Carl Winchester and David Mellor, could have gone to Fulham 15 months ago for £300,000. The offer was turned down, but had the players gone, that’s a season and a half of youth team football paid for in full.

A year ago Chris Taylor was the subject of a six-figure offer from Scunthorpe. Eventually, the product of Oldham’s youth set-up went to Millwall for nothing. That takes us up to at least £500,000 the club could have pocketed for the trio.

Those are the moves that didn’t happen. But what about Tom Eaves? The big striker changed teams a season earlier and Bolton paid a reported £250,000 in August 2010.

Add to that the transfers of Neal Eardley, Neal Trotman, Scott Spencer and Danny Philliskirk and the total cash banked by Athletic in seven years - solely from players raised in the youth squad - is more than £1.4million.

The goalposts have been shifted recently, but young players who move and then go on to be successful will still land their former clubs a major windfall.

Athletic are still praying Micah Richards will move from Manchester City - so the club can get 20 per cent of the sell-on fee.

It seems to me not a question of whether Athletic can afford a youth system. The real poser is can Athletic afford to cut off the source of revenue?