CELTIC and Rangers are warehousing the country’s talented young players to the detriment of the Scottish game as a whole.
That is the view of former Motherwell director Andrew Wilson, who spoke out about the influence of the academies at Ibrox and Parkhead on today’s Off the Ball programme.
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Wilson used the example of former ‘Well kids Jake Hastie and Murray Miller as he claimed that dozens of the nation’s best players “are languishing in the Under-19s or the reserves of the Old Firm”.
Hastie – who spent the first six months of the season on-loan at Rotherham – has barely featured for the Ibrox first team since moving on from the Lanarkshire side, while Miller is a promising teenage defender who has yet to make his Ibrox debut.
While he insisted he wasn’t criticising Celtic and Rangers for acting in their interests, he said the practice wasn’t in the best interests of the Scottish game in general nor Steve Clarke’s national team.
Wilson said: “Henry McLeish was talking this week about why despite all the reforms, the Scotland national team isn’t performing and part of the reason is our best young players don’t get first-team football and that is because dozens of them are languishing in the Under-19s or reserves of the Old Firm.
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“We had a player Murray Miller who left Motherwell. No-one is questioning them [the players] for their decisions or the Old Firm for doing what is in their interests but it is not in the Scottish game’s interests at all.
“Murray Miller is a good example, at 15 leaves Motherwell for Rangers.
“He’s currently 18 playing in their’ Under-19s but everybody at Motherwell says he would be a first team regular for Motherwell as a defender, he could be a future Scotland player but he is not getting first team football.”
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Wilson also hit out at the difficulties experienced at boys’ club level.
He said: “At the other end of the game the same thing is happening at community clubs.
“Some of the clubs that produce some of the best players we have had. Hutchie Vale in Edinburgh produced Leigh Griffiths, Garry O’Connor, Allan McGregor, Kenny Miller, but the money doesn’t filter down to that level of the game.
“Coaches and volunteers are knocking their pan in to get kids chances but the money doesn’t flow properly they’re hand to mouth every week.
“These are the things the Scottish game can fix – grassroots needs proper investment and players need game time.
“I have been whining for months about Jake Hastie, who was getting great plaudits when he was playing first team football for Motherwell.
“So I think that is a big issue. I’m not criticising the Old Firm because that is in their interests but it clearly isn’t in the interest of other clubs or the national team.”
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