Like the Club, the Trust feels great sadness that the decision to close the Centre of Excellence was necessary. The Trust however fully understands the Club's position and why this extremely difficult decision had to be made. The Club will now concentrate its resources on developing young players, 16-18 years of age, who can also play a full part in the first team squad. The Club has also emphasised that the supply lines to scout, develop and acquire young professional footballers will continue to be kept open. The Trust will ensure that the Club continue to keep this situation under constant review. If the current circumstances change significantly it may be possible to reintroduce a similar scheme to develop local talent.

The Trust have asked for the Club to provide further details in due course about the decision on the Centre of Excellence and they have agreed to do this. It is hoped that a detailed explanation behind the decision on will be published on the Club website in the near future. In the interim if members have any questions they want to ask the Club about this matter, please contact us via the website or by letter to Meadow Lane.

It has taken many years to build up one of the best centres in the region and it would not be possible to simply "reintroduce a similar scheme" again at some point in the future.

This has been said on the notts county MAD message board is it true?

"With £138,000 funding received from Sport England, the club would be required to make-up £50,000 to keep the Centre running.

That is just a third of the up-front payment it received for one of the Academy's most recent success stories, Kelvin Wilson, from Preston North End this summer." Rob Davies

The £138,000 was made up with funds from the FA (£2.5m total), the Football Foundation (£1.25m) and the PFA (£1.25m).

The maxium funding allowed to any club was £138,000.

The PFA stopped its payments last year. The League spent all the fund's reserves to plug the gap.

The government is now pulling out now stating "Football is very cash rich so should be able to
fund this itself."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bigapplepie,

That just simply isn't true. The League did offer the grant. If you were over this side of the channel you might get a better picture.

The Atlantic even ... why have you posted this piece of misinformation?

My apologies .. you didn't actually state that the club were not getting the grant .. just tried to give that impression. Very clever wording. Are you a solicitor too?

Nigel King has posted a relatively detailed analysis of the situation on the "What the Hell is Going On?" thread. As he is Vice-Chairman of the Trust and a member of the Board, we can have realistic expectations that he knows as much as anyone in the Trust - apart from the Supporter Director who as a Club Board member has certain responsibilities of confidentiality to them (though they should not extend to misleading the Trust Board). If Nigel misinforms us he can be held accountable - if the Club Board misinforms the Trust, as (collectively) shareholders I would expect that we could hold Club Board members individually responsible legally.

Nigel's explanation pulls together a number of threads and provides, in my opinion, a believable analysis in that:

• A significant amount of the cost has previously been funded by the Football League and sponsorship - the club presumably covering the rest.
  
• The Football League have not confirmed that they will provide any funding next year & no sponsorship has been agreed and confirmed.
  
• Contracts for the coaching staff were due for renewal this month. If renewed the club then commits to honouring them - staff costs are likely to be a significant part of overall costs.
  
• Over 8 or 9 years the CoE has not really covered its cost to the club - yes Kelvin has been sold for a reasonable return but he is the only player who has emerged and become established in the first team.
  
• The Club Board have decided that all possible funds should be directed to the first team squad .
  
• The Club Board have decided that they cannot take decisions assuming that funding that has not been confirmed will eventually arrive - this seems reasonable behaviour given our recent history

It is unfortunate in that by all accounts the CoE was excellent from the kids perspective (compared to local rivals). Unfortunately it has not delivered players for our first team as the best players have been picked off by bigger clubs before they make an impact. Compensation has been minimal - the Pennant money received appears to have been much less than Press reports and more recent players have produced much less money.

Do you think we should spend the money on the first team or on the community? £250,000 is reportedly 25% of the budget for the first team. £50,000 (which is the amount that the club is suggested to have been funding each year recently) is 5%, or probably the cost of a reasonable player at this level. We could probably have "upgraded" a couple of low salary inexperienced squad players had this money been spent on the first team last year.

I think that the Board have made the right decision. A difficult decision and I understand why others might think differently, but the best one for the club.

And for information I am not a solicitor, do not know the identity of WHtBM, and have no personal knowlege of the Trust Board other than as an ordinary member of the Trust.

We are a community club, the community make the club what it is. For a club with a major image problem the CoE was a beacon embodying the principles of the club it's soul and by closing it we are selling it.

Who decided this? I want voting records!

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin:
My apologies .. you didn't actually state that the club were not getting the grant .. just tried to give that impression. Very clever wording. Are you a solicitor too?

Kevin
The information on funding came straight out the Guardian newspaper. I'm not a lawyer.

quote:

Last month the government told the League that from the end of this season it will pull out of funding the youth development programme, which it has done since 1998. Last season the Professional Footballers' Association stopped paying the £1.25m it had been contributing towards the scheme, so the League is now appealing to the FA and Premier League to fill a £3.75m annual funding gap. Both bodies say they support the programme and believe the money should be found but nothing is yet decided.

The Guardian