The FA have announced plans to introduce a “League three” which will include Premier League B teams as well as Conference clubs. This is part of their plan for improving the fortunes of the national side. The structure is already in place in countries such as Spain, with Real Madrid and Barca having B teams in the second tier. I feel introducing this here is a terrible idea.

Firstly, the pyramid league system we have here is brilliant. The best there is in my opinion. For example, the club in my town, Uppingham Town play in the Peterborough and District League, the 11th tier. Now although it’s extremely unlikely without the intervention of a sugar daddy, they can conceivably rise into the football league. AFC Wimbledon rose from the 9th tier, all the way up to League 2 in 9 years. Here, you get games in regional leagues with crowds of 500/600+, it’s incredible. I’d rather see a Kettering Town in the Football League than a Stoke City B. The fact those teams wouldn’t be able to reach the top level also devalues it. In the Spanish Segunda for instance, Barca B could win the league but won’t be able to get promoted.

As a Cheltenham fan, if we ended up in this prospective League Three, I’d have to motivation to see my team play against a Premier League reserve side

Currently, we have a perfectly good loan system in which promising youngsters can be sent out to smaller clubs to get game time and there’s also an under 21 league where young players can play in competitive games. A multitude of players, both past and present benefitted from being loaned out early in their careers. David Beckham went out on loan to Preston, Jermain Defoe went on loan to Bournemouth, Gary Cahill went on loan to Sheffield United, Daniel Sturridge spent time at Bolton, as did Jack Wilshere. Surely that benefitted them a lot more than playing against Alfreton and Woking in League Three would have done?

I get the impression that the logic of the FA is “Spain and Germany seem to be doing quite well at football these days. They have B teams in their league system. That must be the reason!”
The reason Spanish and German football is so good is the way the players have been trained as kids. English kids are taught to win at all costs and are pressurised by pushy parents. There is little focus on technique. The FA recently employed John Beck to help bring through the next generation of UK coaches. Beck is well known for being an advocate of long ball football and “tactics”‘such as letting the grass grow longer in the corners of the pitch so the ball would hold up.

I of course want the national team to be successful but I don’t think it should be at the cost of a league system that’s the envy of other countries. There are plenty of ways to improve the standard of the national team but this is not one of them.