The story that a child wants to play football in a new place has been leading many sports sections for the past few days. The boy in question is the 15-year-old JJ Gabriel, the new place probably Spain.
But the aggravating factor in all this is that he is currently registered with Manchester United, still one of the biggest football clubs in the world.
In this context it feels a little icky adding my voice to the noise around this gem of a player but this both is and is not about him.
The outrageous level of interest in footballers too young to drive a car, smoke or hold down any other kind of job is only set to increase in the coming years – and the ages at which their moves become news will get even younger.
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There are a number of reasons for this but the speed of acceleration is a direct result of the spending we’ve seen this Premier League transfer window. More money than ever before was exchanged between Premier League clubs, with a £100million price tag no longer signifying a generational talent but instead merely a very good, currently suitable midfielder. £3.7billion spent all in across the window, nearly half of that in intra-Premier League transfers.
The financial might of the league means the rest of Europe has long been unable to spend comparably to clubs in England, with a few obvious exceptions in the ‘European Super League’ posse.
The knock-on effects become clear speaking with former Norwich and Huddersfield manager David Wagner this week in Germany, where he is now the boss of RB Leipzig’s academy.
‘We have to make a certain percentage – double figures for sure – of our team be produced by our academy… because the market in the last five, seven years went so expensive. It even makes it more important that we start to produce first-team players from the academy,’ he told me.
Leipzig’s amazing success signing Yan Diomande for €25m in July last year and selling him a year later, still aged just 19, to Real Madrid for €100m more is key to this ability to continue to compete.
‘You might have asked when we sold Benjamin Sesko, Xavi Simons, Lois Openda, I don’t know how many goals we sold last summer: how can you qualify for the Champions League if you sold your best players? Well, by buying Diomande and building him up.’
Clearly you can’t expect to find a Diomande-level signing every year.
Leipzig’s CEO of sport Marcel Schafer works closely with Wagner to plan for the team’s future and spelt out what this means.
‘You need to go earlier on the players. Obviously it’s tricky because we’re talking about really young humans. If you see in the market now 18, 19, 20-year-old players are the rising stars in any top five league,’ he said.
‘So we have to go a little bit earlier: bring them already into our academy and develop them quick as possible into our first team.’
When you consider that Lamine Yamal is only just 19 and has a World Cup to his name, what 16-year-old Max Dowman was able to do against Ipswich on Tuesday night feels less like an outlier.
Many exceptional players are verging on complete when still boys. Three factors intensify the JJ Gabriel storm.
First he is really, really good and already well known – The Telegraph likened his possible exit to Barcelona losing Lionel Messi.
Second, Brexit, which means that English players must be 18 to transfer out of England but Gabriel, who has Irish and Cypriot heritage, could with either passport leave two years earlier next month, when he turns 16.
And third, the way that profit and sustainability rules work in the Premier League. Selling an academy product counts as pure profit, a curious quirk of rules aimed to encourage sustainable behaviour from clubs.
Kids as young as three are now being funnelled into football-focused environments, as the search for talent takes in boys who were lately toddling.
It may sound mad to be trying to distinguish the skills of one baby as distinct from another but as player cost at the very pinnacle of the sport continues on its wild ride, the only smart move for the more fiscally-constrained clubs is to continue to buy smarter and that means ever earlier in the food chain.
Just how good is JJ Gabriel?
There is good reason for the hype around JJ Gabriel. The teenager is considered to be the most exceptional young talent to progress through United’s youth ranks in recent years and across the game at youth level, he is regarded as the best player in the country born in 2010.
In addition to those Messi comparisons, his ability to effortlessly take the ball on the turn has seen him likened to Phil Foden, who progressed through the youth academy over the way at Manchester City.
Under the guidance of United’s Under-18 boss Darren Fletcher, he has developed into a lethal goal scorer, with the skill and variety in his finishing heightening the expectation around him.
Football is littered with stories of unique talents failing to make the step up to men’s football with some of United’s brightest young talents failing to make the grade. Angel Gomes, who currently holds the record of United’s youngest Premier League player in history, has carved out a decent career for himself in France having also been recognised at international level, but made just 10 more appearances for United after his debut. Shola Shoretire, the youngest player to represent the club in European competition, is currently playing for Greek outfit PAOK.
But the situation with Gabriel has felt very different. United hope the situation can still be rectified – but no matter how enormous the talent, the club cannot be seen being held to ransom by a schoolboy – or whoever is making decisions on his behalf.
Barcelona’s interest in him has already been well-documented and the teenager holds an Irish passport through his dad, former Republic of Ireland international Joe O’Cearuill, meaning any move abroad would be free of any Brexit red tape.
Tony Mogan, live sports editor