NextGen was an organisation set up for clubs to pitch their Academy Teams against opponents from all over Europe. Mike Warburton the manager from Brentford was heavily involved.
I am not sure of the inclusion criteria; however, it was apparent that it focussed on the quality of the academy set up as opposed to the status of the club. Some of the crowds were into the five figure amounts and there was 20000 plus at Olympiakos.
Uefa got wind of this and decided to set up their own; however, their inclusion status was much different.
Basically, ownly teams involved in the Champions League can enter their sides and I am not sure that is all inclusive either.
NextGen cannot compete with this model as Uefa have acquired TV Rights and the massive clubs of this world have jumped ship.
Van Der Saar has stated that the Dutch have only one entry into the Champions league at the moment; therefore, it has not gone down well in the Netherlands. Our academy seems to be very progressive and we could well have been involved in the initial model in the future.
Another example of someone getting something nearly right and Uefa smashing it to bits.
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Why can't NextGen compete? Surely even if you take away the Champions League sides there would be plenty of high standard clubs? Or were NextGen reliant on gate and TV money that the Champions league sides would bring?
If UEFA hadn't done this, then would the Champions league sides have done it themselves?
If you type in Nextgen Ian Herbert into your search engine the whole article will appear. I could not download it I am afraid.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/ian-herbert-the-brilliant-youth-football-idea-that-uefa-took-on-and-killed-9834415.html
(Interesting to see the article states 11,000 for a game at WHL, not sure what one that was!)