Deep dive 

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Scotland’s time at Euro 2024 was as brief as it was uninspiring, as Steve Clarke’s team managed just one point from three games and not an awful lot of chances in front of goal to improve on that. As only their second international tournament since 1998, few within the Tartan Army take qualification for granted. But the manner in which Scotland succumbed to a 1-0 defeat to Hungary on Sunday evening has left many wondering what comes next for the national team. 

What’s perhaps just as concerning as the actual performances on the pitch is the state of the team off it. With an average age of 28.3, only hosts Germany went into Euro 2024 with an older squad than the one Clarke had assembled for the tournament. And, to the concern of many fans of the national team, there’s a growing concern over who will come next after the likes of Andy Robertson and John McGinn hang up their boots in the years to come. And that worry over where the stars of tomorrow will come from is only exasperated when we consider the state of the Scottish Premiership and its inability to develop young players for the Scotland national team. 

Indeed, when we compare the Scottish Premiership’s track record in offering game time to young players with its counterparts across Europe, it makes for concerning reading. According to Transfermarkt information, over the course of this season’s league campaign, just 3.2% of the total minutes played across the Scottish Premiership were by players aged 21 or under. That, rather worryingly, is notably less than other medium-sized leagues in Europe such as the Czech Fortuna Liga (5.9%) and Swiss Super League (5.5%) and well behind leagues such as the Belgian Jupiler Pro League (11.8%) and the Norwegian Eliteserien (11.4%), which have garnered reputations for developing a number of exceptional young players in recent seasons. 

These figures only become starker when we then zoom in on the individual clubs in the Scottish top-flight to see which ones are giving serious game time to young players. Worryingly, no less than half of the 12 Premiership clubs – Celtic, Rangers, St Mirren, St Johnstone, Dundee and Livingston – failed to provide at least 50% of the available minutes in the regular league campaign to a single U21 player this season, while Kilmarnock, Ross County, Hearts and Hibernian only had one U21 player in their team that played at least half a league campaign. Aberdeen outperformed all other clubs in the division, but even their tally stands at just two U21 players for the entire season. 

Why does the Scottish Premiership struggle to develop young players?

Perhaps the most obvious barrier to offering more game time to young players is in fact the actual structure of the Scottish Premiership. Consisting of 12 teams, the league then splits into two halves, where teams fight for either European football or to avoid relegation often until the final weeks of the season. And that’s without even taking into account the fierce title race between Celtic and Rangers each season. As such, each club from top to bottom is often desperately in need of points each week. Every match counts. And that doesn’t offer many opportunities to blood young players into first teams.  

“You’ve probably got five teams every season worried about relegation every year and they’re not going to play young players,” noted Stevie Grieve, head coach of Finish top-flight side SJK Seinäjoki, who previously worked as head of scouting at St Johnstone, as well as coaching roles at four other Scottish clubs. “And then when you look at the second level of it, there are teams trying to qualify for Europe through finishing in the top six. Hearts are clearly miles ahead of everyone else in third and once they had that secured they did start to play younger players, like Finlay Pollock and others. So they had the time to do it because they had that buffer to drop points. If you were to expand the size of the league to 14 or 16, maybe you’d have five teams competing for Europe, four teams fighting against relegation, then you have a bigger mid-table where coaches are not under pressure to win and can therefore give more minutes to younger players.”

Another major issue for Scottish football is that the brightest young talents in club academies are often hoovered up by richer clubs in England before they get the chance to play for their hometown clubs. In the last five seasons alone the Scottish top-flight has seen 19 players under the age of 21 depart Scottish football for English clubs, such as James Scott leaving Motherwell for Hull City at 19, Kerr Smith departing Dundee United for Aston Villa at 17, Josh Reid moving from Ross County to Coventry at 18 and, perhaps most notably, Liverpool signing Aberdeen youngster Calvin Ramsay for €4.9 million at the age of 18. And it’s not hard to see why players would opt for more established clubs in England, over Premiership sides that can’t promise them game time. 

“Obviously Scottish football has a problem with players being bought by clubs in England when they’re very young,” adds Grieve when asked about the outside factors impacting Scottish youth academies. “But if you’re a young player in Scotland and you know that only 3.2% of the minutes in the league are allocated to U21 players, do you wait for three years and maybe never get paid or do you go to England, earn four times your salary and then return to Scotland on loan? Because that’s a viable option. For example, if a Scottish player moves to Manchester City and plays in the U21 team, maybe he then goes on loan abroad and plays in a different league for a year. So I don’t think we actually have a huge problem developing players, I think when the players get to the age of 17 or 18, they have the opportunity to quadruple their salary and they’re taking the opportunity to leave because they don’t see the pathway to the first team in Scotland.”

However, perhaps the most serious issue for Scottish football trying to develop their own players is the Premiership’s over-reliance on cheap loan signings from English football. This season alone saw the 12 top-flight clubs loan no less than 35 players from the top four divisions in England – which is the second highest movement of said players in the last 10 years. That works out at an average of just under three players on loan per club. And in many cases the players brought in are of the same age and profile of the players that would have likely made the step up from the club’s youth team. For example, of the ten players Dundee loaned this season nine of them were aged 21 or younger. And, even more remarkably, two of the players were Scottish and many of them had already been on loan at other Premiership clubs in the past. 

As a result, Premiership squads get bloated with young players from the English leagues, which not only take up space that could go to young Scottish players but also take money out of the Premiership while developing players for other clubs. “The Scottish leagues have a decision that they need to make,” said Grieve on this trend of Scottish clubs relying on English prospects. “How many loans should each club be allowed and what percentage of minutes can be given to English loans? Because what’s happening now is that Scottish football is just developing English players to send back to England, to generate a profit from. For every good player like Mika Biereth, who was clearly a good player on loan at Motherwell, there are four or five players that aren’t so good. So Scottish clubs are spending anywhere between €600-€1700 a week on loan players that contribute nothing to Scottish football in terms of building the squads, revenue generation or developing sellable assets.”

For Grieve, the influx of young players gets to the crux of the issues facing Scottish clubs and is something that should be heavily regulated to ensure Premiership sides are nudged towards developing their own players rather than simply shipping in new young talents from south of the border each season. “The easy solution to this is to have a massive limit on U23 loans from English clubs,” said Grieve. “And treat these players arriving in Scotland as players that almost need a work permit. Why are the club hiring this player? Why is he better than the players you already have? Is he better than your youth academy players? If not, then why are the club signing him? These players should be treated the same as if a club were signing a player from Africa, Asia, North American or European. Because they are essentially taking away the opportunity to play from a young Scottish player.”

Scotland may still be producing good, young players through the academies dotted throughout the country and the coaching education that the lucky few get if they depart for England at a young age, but there’s little doubt that the nation’s top-flight is failing in its commitment to developing the stars of tomorrow. Short-term thinking and an over-reliance on convenient loan signings from England have built up barriers that are too high for even the best young players in Scotland to get past. And If something doesn’t change soon, the nations top clubs and national team will all be suffering as the rest of Europe leaves them behind on and off the pitch.