Hearts beat the Brexit trend with a statement signing but the SPFL is losing out

Credit is due to Tynecastle officials but the wider issue of top Scottish talents heading to England remains.

Hearts signing their 16-year-old youth academy forward James Wilson on a two-year professional contract should not be overhyped. Applying undue pressure on a developing teenager is never a healthy practice. However, there is no escaping the notion that this is a statement move by the Edinburgh club.

The precocious striker was courted by English Premier League teams including Manchester United, Aston Villa and Leeds United. After visiting stadiums, training grounds and holding talks down south, he rejected the prospect of earning thousands of pounds per week extra to remain at Tynecastle Park.

Many Scottish Premiership sides now find themselves losing talented academy players to vulture-like English counterparts, including Hearts themselves. The consequences of Brexit have rendered Scottish football ripe for the picking. So keeping Wilson was a timely sign of Hearts’ intent.

English clubs cannot sign foreign players until the age of 18 because of Brexit laws and work permit issues. By then they need to pay higher fees, so Scottish kids have never been more valuable. Scouts from the EPL are swarming all over youth academy matches at Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and other Premiership clubs each week.

Among those to exit SPFL clubs in recent years are: Josh Adam, the attacking midfielder who left Celtic for Manchester City in 2020 aged 16; Rory Wilson, the striker who joined Aston Villa from Rangers in 2022 aged 16; Ewan Simson, the midfielder who departed Hearts for Aston Villa in 2022 aged 16.

Fees are paid to their developing clubs under FIFA training compensation rules, but those would be significantly higher with even a few first-team outings. Defender Charlie McArthur earned Kilmarnock almost £400,000 – before add-ons and any sell-on fee – with a transfer to Newcastle last summer. He was 17 with four senior appearances at Rugby Park. Midfielder Dylan Reid joined Crystal Palace from St Mirren in a similar move earlier this year, also after four competitive games. He is the youngest player in the Paisley club’s history.

The Scottish league is losing some of its best young talent, and not all of it will follow the Billy Gilmour route into the national team. The danger is that too many teenagers get lost in among four vast English divisions and don’t realise their full potential.

The Hearts badge is displayed at Tynecastle Park.

“Brexit has really harmed clubs in Scotland. Rangers and Celtic have lost players to big English clubs,” says Allan Preston, the former Hearts winger who now works with the worldwide football agency CAA Stellar Sports. “It’s great that Hearts managed to get young Wilson signed. That’s magnificent news for the academy there and all credit to the people involved there. I’m sure [interim manager] Steven Naismith had a big hand in it because he’s been working with the lad for a while as the B team coach.

“It is still a big problem, though. Clubs in Scotland can’t pay the same as English clubs, so what they need to offer is a pathway; a route to the first team. If a kid can play 75 or 100 games, then he could be sold to England. That way there is more money going to the club that produced him and looked after him.

“We are seeing boys who have been with a club since age seven or eight walking out of the door for next to no money at 16 to go to England. If they waited and got 75 or 100 games, then bigger clubs would pay good money for them.”

The caveat to that argument is that managers are under intense pressure to get results and developing youth is not always a high priority. Half of the Premiership clubs have changed managers since the start of the season, so demands are high.

“Managers giving young boys a chance is very difficult. You need to be very strong to throw in a kid of 16 or 17,” says Preston. “These young guys need to play against men, though. I was 16 in the reserves at Dundee United playing left-back with David Narey inside me at centre-half. He was coming back from injury and I learned more that night than I learned in months because he talked me through so much. Young boys now don’t get that because there is no reserve league.”

Hearts have their own issues in that department. Too few Riccarton youth graduates have established themselves in the first-team in recent years. Signing Wilson along with other teenagers Bobby McLuckie and Macaulay Tait shows that the club hierarchy are serious about changing the situation.

“We have faith in the pathway and development of our players and James has echoed that belief by signing his contract,” sporting director Joe Savage explained to the club website last week. “We think we’re on to something special here in regard to all the plans that have been put in place at the academy and we’re really excited about it.

“We hope that it showcases to other young players and their parents that this is the place to be – and we can hopefully develop players that get into Hearts’ first team and eventually become Hearts legends and Scotland internationals.”

Fans contributing monthly pledges through Foundation of Hearts will hope those plans come to fruition. “Every set of fans want to see young kids coming through,” admits Preston. “Like a lot of clubs, Hearts spend a lot of money on their youth academy and they want to see the fruits of that. Especially now that the club is fan-owned.

“Fans are piling money in, they want to see what is coming through from the academy. Steven Naismith will know all these kids having coached the B team. Hopefully some can get in and around the first team but they have to be good enough. The last top striker Hearts brought through the academy was probably Scott Crabbe. Before that, it was John Robertson. That’s a long time. It’s very difficult to find guys like that.”