Mikel Arteta believes it is “impossible” for Arsenal’s academy to produce as many top players as Barcelona’s famous La Masia setup owing to regulations imposed on English clubs.
Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly have broken into Arsenal’s first team this season after coming through the academy and should feature against Brighton on Saturday. Arteta started his career at Barcelona and shared a dormitory with Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Victor Valdés at La Masia. But he suggested he had been frustrated in attempts to recreate the same environment at Arsenal because of certain rules, including restrictions on signing young players from overseas until they are 18.
“For example we lived in La Masia. To replicate that here is impossible. We cannot do it,” said Arteta. “It is the most unique environment I have seen in my life, the most competitive, the most inspiring and the most professional environment at any club or academy that I have seen that replicates a first-team environment at 14 or 15 years old. To do that with the capacity to recruit from all over Spain, or all over the world if you wanted at that time, that is very difficult to achieve.”
Asked whether he would like to see the same thing at Arsenal, Arteta added: “Yes because we were 32 players there and I think 29 of them made it to the highest level. The six that shared a room with me were legends in the football world. That is unheard of. There is something special there, that is not a coincidence. And they have done it for decades now.”
Premier League clubs have not been able to sign overseas players under the age of 18 since new regulations came into force after Brexit. Arteta insisted those rules have made it hard them to compete with other elite clubs in Europe. “It’s so limited, that’s why with the financial situation that all the clubs have at the moment,” he said. “But that’s a regulation – it might change, it might not. We just need to be so good with the actual regulation right now. But it is very different in Europe. That’s the thing that I don’t think is very, very fair.”
It is understood Arsenal have been looking into building their own multi-club network in order to keep pace with their rivals, with the stable of Manchester City’s owners, City Football Group, now comprising 14 clubs around the globe.
Arteta feels that the growing trend has been a response to the regulations on academy players. “That’s something that a lot of clubs have at the moment,” he said. “So, that restriction in the country has provoked many other clubs to have sister clubs or multi-club systems to be able to do that.
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“Looking ahead in the future [the multi-club model] is something basically to explore, because obviously with the actual system it’s very, very difficult. Every club is very different in the way that they are set up and the clubs that they have picked. But in our way it’s obviously a decision from our ownership and the board to understand what is the best thing for the club in the future.”
Source: theguardian.com
