The Young Generation: Marking a decade of excellence under EPPP
From the official Chelsea FC website:
To mark 10 years of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), the Premier League’s director of football Neil Saunders recently visited Cobham to check in on one of the best-performing academies during that time.
Chelsea have won numerous titles including the FA Youth Cup, UEFA Youth League, Premier League 2 and Under-18 Premier League over the past decade, though it is the progression of so many young players into the senior game that has brought most pleasure to those working at our Surrey training base.
Leading that group of staff is our long-serving academy boss Neil Bath, who was recently promoted to director of football development and operations. Bath hosted Saunders at Cobham to launch the Premier League’s EPPP 10-year report, highlighting a decade of progress across the game.
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The EPPP was launched by the Premier League in 2012/13, in consultation with the English Football League, the FA and clubs, with the aim to develop a world-leading youth development system which produces more and better homegrown players.
Across the league, those numbers have indisputably improved; almost £2bn of investment into youth development by the Premier League and clubs over the past 10 years, 566 homegrown Premier League debutants since the launch of EPPP, and 47 per cent of players to have featured in England’s top flight in the last decade being classed as homegrown.
At Chelsea, those figure are even more impressive, with six Academy graduates having started our most recent Premier League game and two of those – Mason Mount and Conor Gallagher – currently representing England at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Ethan Ampadu (Wales), Andreas Christensen (Denmark), Nathan Ake (Netherlands), Ike Ugbo (Canada) Tariq Lamptey (Ghana) and Jamal Musiala (Germany) also join the list of those in Qatar who have spent time in our Academy programme at Cobham.
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