The development centre set up varies widely from club to club, depending on the club’s size, their finances, and the priority they attach to them. Basically, a development centre is a part of the club that offers training and coaching to youngsters who are very good at football, but not quite at the level required to be offered a schoolboy contract at the academy. You could describe it as a slightly watered down version of the academy. This has the benefit that those attending receive fantastic levels of pro coaching, but because they have not officially signed a schoolboy contract with a club, they can play for whoever they want. So, a player at a development centre might play in fixtures for his school, a grass roots club and the development centre all in the same season.
These centres are seen by many clubs as an excellent way of picking up more young local players who might, one day, be good enough for their academies. Because the development centre coaches all have links with the clubs, (indeed usually the development centre coaches are one and the same as the academy coaches), then they are ideally placed to be able to judge if a player is good enough for a trial at the academy. The development centre is a great way for a young player to receive top quality coaching, to improve his skills and get on the radar of a pro club.
Some development centres offer two training nights a week, and they may offer a fixture list of matches, but this varies from club to club. Many more clubs are now investing in development centres, as they see them as an ideal training ground for players who might one day be good enough to sign a schoolboy contract and move across into the academy.
For this reason, many development centres are now making a real effort to mimic the structure and workings of an academy, to make the transition from one to another as seamless as possible. This means that they may put on extra training hours and extra fixtures.
As a general rule, this system works well, and these development centres create an attractive environment for players to hang out. Here they can develop both as players and individuals, while the coaches and staff can watch the player’s attitude, ability and football skills develop in a very similar environment to the academy itself.
Being attached to a development squad is usually just a way of allowing the club to assess players further, and keep them under their umbrella. This is especially true for those players that may need a little bit of additional time to develop. Maybe they are maturing late physically, or perhaps they have come to the game late and have not had a lot of coaching or practice during their early years. So, this is somewhere where clubs can offer a young player an additional pathway in the club, without actually having to commit to them and sign them up as an academy player.
Today, many of the development centres and development squads may be run by the recruitment department of a club, rather than the coaching department. This is mainly because they are there to assess players and their development, to try and decide which players are ready for the opportunity to get called in for a trial with the academy boys.
A brief word of caution. Some clubs charge a fee for players to be part of their development squad. Now depending on the size of the club, that might genuinely be so they can afford to run one. It might be purely to cover the expenses of the coaches and of the facilities. But there have been occasions where clubs have had vast numbers of players in development squads so that the money each one pays becomes a revenue stream. So, our advice to any family being offered an opportunity to join a development centre in a situation like this, is to ensure that it's for all the right reasons. Check things out carefully before you hand over your money.