Most of the focus in the last 5 years of Ogren's tenure has been to sell as many Academy players as possible, for profit.

How many have we actually sold in that time?

Scott Banks
Jamie Robson
Kerr Smith
Louis Appere
Kai Fotheringham
Rory Macleod
Brandon Forbes


By my count, 7 players in 5 years.

What is the total transfer intake for the above 7? I honestly don't know.

But does it match the 3M spent on the Academy in that same time frame? Absolutely not.

Perhaps our best course of action is better recruitment in scouting, both Scotland and UK based.

I have never understood for example, the clubs recent focus on only recruiting young players from the North East.

Why not also scout from the most populas part of the country like we used to in the past? I.e. Glasgow and Lanarkshire? And indeed all over the entire country and parts of England.

That to me is possibly the way forward.

And without the huge cost of doing it via the Schools.




 

We would still have youth teams and young players coming through ( even though it looks like we don’t have this now )

It depends on the philosophy of the manager for me. I realise you can’t turn it on and off like a tap  and having an academy is a long term project.

But if Goodwin is your manager his clear idea is recruiting foreign players who he believes bring better value for money. He said that during the summer. He only plays our academy players when he has no other choice. In that case the academy is a waste of time and money.

Last piece is that any young player we get that has clear talent leaves us within a few months for absolute peanuts to disappear in an English academy. That is about the club being extremely poorly run and having a weak, short term outlook rather than long term. Forbes, banks and Neilson would be good examples.

So in balance a waste of money based on the clubs strategy which I think is all wrong.

Last edited by Slotbadger (15/12/2025 3:28 pm)

If the annual cost of running the academy is as low as £600k then it's currently just about paying for itself but isn't doing much else besides.
On that basis I voted to keep it. Owen Stirton and Sam Harding must be mightily pissed off and you can see why parents start encouraging youngsters to leave.

But would be interested Tek in your source for the 600k

Last edited by redford_must_score (14/12/2025 4:53 pm)

For me the academy is part of the club being involved with the community.  Perhaps I am too stuck in the past and should be thinking about DUFC PLC rather than as a shared asset for the community, but I think everyone on here sees this club as more than just a company the follow.

Do I think the way it  has been run over the years reflect that, well probably not, but this club is more than just the people who are directly involved in it at this precise moment, and how it is being run.

I also don't  think there is much evidence that more money for the first team squad would bring success on the field based on the past few years

Scottish clubs should scrap the whole thing. Let English clubs take on paying for developing young Scottish players since they are awash with cash and we aren't. Scottish clubs should then take on the decent Scottish players who are let go from English academies at ages 17+.

Btw I take no pleasure from saying this. I grew up watching Utd teams bring through swathes of young players in a 5 year period like Gallacher, Welsh, McKinlay, Main, O'Neil, McKinnon, Cleland, Ferguson, Connolly, McLaren, Dailly, Bollan, Johnson, Preston, Hannah, Perry, Winters most u21/full caps.

But the financial realities are stark, plus the best ones leave after a handful of games whilst the ones who stay are often not trusted or rated by managers and drop down the leagues very quickly. It's a very depressing situation.

Even the supposedly better ones going down to England at 16-17 are not making it either. The difference is they end up playing 5 years in academy football on 5 grand a week with huge financial incentives for their parents before not making it.

Last edited by lifesanocean (14/12/2025 9:44 pm)

Macho Man wrote:

Tek wrote:

Most of the focus in the last 5 years of Ogren's tenure has been to sell as many Academy players as possible, for profit.

How many have we actually sold in that time?

Scott Banks
Jamie Robson
Kerr Smith
Louis Appere
Kai Fotheringham
Rory Macleod
Brandon Forbes


By my count, 7 players in 5 years.

What is the total transfer intake for the above 7? I honestly don't know.

But does it match the 3M spent on the Academy in that same time frame? Absolutely not.

Perhaps our best course of action is better recruitment in scouting, both Scotland and UK based.

I have never understood for example, the clubs recent focus on only recruiting young players from the North East.

Why not also scout from the most populas part of the country like we used to in the past? I.e. Glasgow and Lanarkshire? And indeed all over the entire country and parts of England.

That to me is possibly the way forward.

And without the huge cost of doing it via the Schools.




 

I understand the comparison between how much we have sold players for vs the cost of the academy.  But this comparison isn't a true reflection of the value of the academy though, is it?

If we didn't have those players in your list, we would have had to bring in players to fill their positions (or place in the squad).  Those players that we signed would possibly come with a transfer fee, a signing on fee and probably a higher wage then players coming through the academy.

You have to factor in how some of those players impacted the first team.  Robson, Aperre and Fotheringham all played a decent amount of first team games for the club and played pretty well in those games.

What I'm trying to say is its not a simple comparison of cost to run the academy vs value of sales.  I might be wrong with my view, but I just think that the full picture has to be considered.

Bring in players to replace them?

4 of them barely played for us (Banks, Smith, Forbes, MacLeod).

As a side point. Some of the best players we've had in recent years we've signed for buttons from lower leagues (Barry Robson, Danny Swanson, Craig Conway, Prince Bauben, Morgaro Gomis, Andy Robertson etc)

David_Blunkett wrote:

We'll never scrap the academy, because it's seen to be the right thing to do.

How many Dundee born and bred lads have made the grade recently, Garry Kenneth probably the last one.

Clear-Harding, once he gets a chance.

 
To be fair I don't think the original objective of the Academy was for a pathway for Dundee boys as an exclusive target sample.

This is an excellent debate though.

Tek wrote:

Most of the focus in the last 5 years of Ogren's tenure has been to sell as many Academy players as possible, for profit.

How many have we actually sold in that time?

Scott Banks
Jamie Robson
Kerr Smith
Louis Appere
Kai Fotheringham
Rory Macleod
Brandon Forbes


By my count, 7 players in 5 years.

What is the total transfer intake for the above 7? I honestly don't know.

But does it match the 3M spent on the Academy in that same time frame? Absolutely not.



Perhaps our best course of action is better recruitment in scouting, both Scotland and UK based.

I have never understood for example, the clubs recent focus on only recruiting young players from the North East.

Why not also scout from the most populas part of the country like we used to in the past? I.e. Glasgow and Lanarkshire? And indeed all over the entire country and parts of England.

That to me is possibly the way forward.

And without the huge cost of doing it via the Schools.




 

 
I feel Ogren was conned into thinking you could have a smooth conveyor belt of talent which could be sold on EPL clubs. This was never the case. You could have 5-7  years of nothing. That is not to say we haven’t unearthed talent, on the contrary, Mark Wilson and Badger were from Coatbridge, Richard Gough was overlooked by Rangers, Barry Douglas, Paddy Connelly and Andy Robertson were all Queen Park and that’s just off the top of my head. We had a great scout in the Coatbridge area Graeme something???

I suspect one of the problems we have, is the same problem that the Old Firm has i.e. we don’t see ourselves as a “feeder” club. This means we develop young players, but, rarely play them. Very simply that is a hugely inefficient approach.

It reminds me of something Ian Cathro said when he was trying to coach 10 year olds. If you tell a kid: “don’t lose the ball”, “if in doubt clear your lines” “get in their faces”, how you foster talent? Football is a game about individual expression. Many things cannot be coached. If you tell a manager he has to win games, he can only play academy players if they are ready and that he has to follow a player trading model, what happens? It’s garbage. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

I think St Johnstone, Motherwell and to a lesser extent Aberdeen are nearer the approach we should adopt.

Seemingly the SFA are cutting our Academy grant for next year by about 25% but I'm not sure what that equates to in cash terms.
Same for other clubs and the rationale is that clubs aren't playing enough Scottish youngsters in their first teams. So a kind of punishment beating in a year when FIFA money and corporate freebies will come gushing in.

But I also read that the SFA are funding or at the least part funding a new stadium in Glasgow for joint use by the women's teams.

I would expect Ogren to put a funding proposal to the Foundation on this.
Could be some tricky conversations ahead.

In principle I'd like to keep it.
In practice if we've got laddies like Stirton, SCH on the bench getiing splinters - total waste of time.
Jim never seems to give Sapsford free rein and the full 90.   Watters, puts himself about but bottom line is a loanee. Jim fiddles around with they two.   Stirton hasn't had a look in.
Our new back three - dunno. I'd just like to see SCH given a run alongside Graham.
Again, otherwise what's the good of it.

Bring back "S" forms !!
 

Conway11 wrote:

Shakey Isles Arab wrote:

In principle I'd like to keep it.
In practice if we've got laddies like Stirton, SCH on the bench getiing splinters - total waste of time.
Jim never seems to give Sapsford free rein and the full 90.   Watters, puts himself about but bottom line is a loanee. Jim fiddles around with they two.   Stirton hasn't had a look in.
Our new back three - dunno. I'd just like to see SCH given a run alongside Graham.
Again, otherwise what's the good of it.

Bring back "S" forms !!
 

Watters is fucking rank rotten

For me I'd have Sapsford, give the young Stirton a run , then Watters. To say Watter is rank rotten, that's boo boy stuff.
Who is rank rotten is Moller. Jim stubbornly sticks with him & Stirton on the bench.
Goes back to original question - Academy, Is it worh it ?


Mebbe Jim's got more patience than us which isnae silly given our fondness for injuries. When you see Graham back he's very steady & calming,, and then SCH gets a run - good stuff. Mebbe bide our time we'll get Stirton in.