Good City related email on F365 today.

Keano Should Try Coming From Norwich...
I note that Roy Keane is lamenting the fact that Sunderland's close proximity to the coast means that the club are severly restricted in terms of the number of young players they can sign because of FA rules that state that boys must live within 90 minutes' travel time of any team they sign for.

As a Norwich City supporter-who laughs at Newcastle United fans and their perceived 'crisis', try supporting the Canaries! Keane ought to try being our manager. The North Sea is less than 90 minutes north and east of the City, whilst, if you go south or west, it's mostly villages, fields, and areas where the occasional tumbleweed blowing across a deserted fen would be counted as congestion. On the rare occasion we have managed to unearth a youngster who qualifies and has some ability, we lose them anyway - Manchester United once whipped one away from us by regularly flying him to Manchester, thus circumventing the FA rules that way, as the flight time is less than, yes, 90 minutes.

The club's expenses in setting up, running, and maintaining the Academy have greatly contributed to the mountainous debt that we, along with many other clubs, now have, the supreme irony being that, as the rules restrict us greatly in terms of being able to recruit young players, the Academy is fast becoming a liability, and, in order to have any chance of competing in the Championship this season, we have to resort to a great number of loan signings - eight at the last count - the most recent being Leroy Lita, who is donning the yellow jersey for a month in order to get fit - but at our expense.

That, it would seem, is acceptable. However, signing and bringing a young player through what has been perceived as one of the best football Academies in the country who might just come from Reading itself - not permitted.

Perhaps the Oxbridge Universties should only allow students that live within...no, thought not.

So what is the FA's problem here, exactly?

Ed Couzens
Brancaster, Norfolk

Posted By: lurd on October 9th 2008 at 14:16:05

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