Dubai: While the appointment of Diego Maradona at Al Wasl brings the argument for big name-signings back to the forefront, Don Revie's former UAE assistant has warned: "if you don't have the right structure below, it doesn't matter who you bring in at the top - there's no magic wand."
Pat Wright, 70, who served under Revie with the UAE in the early 1980s, made over 700 appearances in English football with the likes of Birmingham City and Derby County, where he served under the late Brian Clough.
He acknowledged that while Al Wasl had appointed Maradona, they had also made the right noises with regards their academy and the appointment of former Barcelona youth development officer Albert Benaiges. However, he stressed for the benefit of other clubs that one couldn't come before or without the other.
"Don Revie used to say it would take 15-20 years to develop football here and people slaughtered him for it, but he was right," said Wright, who has coached everywhere in the world from Malaysia to the Faroe Islands, even with Dubai's Al Nasr in the mid 1980s.
"You don't start from the top," said Wright."
Alex Ferguson was emphatic to produce a quality youth programme when he started in 1986 and the end result is he's won 12 of their 19 league titles with Scholes, Giggs and Neville."
"You need to start at the bottom and coaches need to be given the time to put a system in place," said Wright in reference to David O'Leary, who was sacked by Al Ahli eight months into a three-year plan.
"It's vital the right coaches are appointed to grow the game from a youth perspective with adequate youth development experience. Often clubs go with big name coaches who have been big players, but not big coaches," said Wright.
Wright has been working in conjunction with Sharjah Football Club's U-16s, where he hosted them on a UK tour and boot camp style training programme at the beginning of the season. They've since gone on to win the domestic league title here at their age-group and Wright has tipped three or four players to break the first team within two years.
Talent search
Sharjah's Soccer School, a community outreach and talent search scheme was pivotal in allowing expatriate kids in a side's youth and reserves being accepted by the UAEFA.
As of last January 1, UAE clubs can — if they wish — register two foreigners to their reserve side (U-21s), plus five in their U-12s, U-13s and U-18s set-up.
But Wright suggests pushing this one step forward in a bid to up competition for shirts and confront the local players with different styles of play.
"If an expatriate kid is born in the UAE and has lived here five years he shouldn't be considered a foreign player. I'm not saying he should represent the UAE, just his local club. There's a massive market outside that clubs have not tapped into."
Sponsor-dependent, Wright now plans to set up a star search scheme in the UAE to find rough diamonds and take them back to England for polishing at professional clubs. This, he said, will correct an apparent oversight by most clubs when it comes to youth development.
