Clubs must not lose sight of benefits experienced players bring – Maheta Molango

Club owners obsessed with resale value should not lose sight of the benefits experienced players bring to a squad, players’ union boss Maheta Molango has said.

Molango, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, believes players aged 30 and over are increasingly struggling to find job security as clubs focus on younger talent they can develop and sell on at profit.

For the second successive summer the PFA is assisting its out-of-contract members by staging a pre-season training camp at a resort in the Leicestershire countryside, helping them get in the best shape possible to find a new club.

But Molango sees the landscape becoming increasingly challenging for the older demographic.

“We’re not immune to the fact that you’ve got a new profile of owners coming into the game,” he said.

“Some of them, very much data-led, some of them very much led towards achieving a profit, generating what they call ‘value’. Therefore we see certain clubs saying, ‘I’m not signing any more players over a certain age’.

“You can see squads are getting younger and younger and you see people past the age of 30 struggle to get long-term deals.”

The financial success of clubs like Brighton in recruiting and reselling players seems to be the holy grail others are chasing, but Molango believes that unlike Brighton, other clubs have lost sight of the need for a balanced squad.

“What some of those guys don’t understand is that, for (Evan) Ferguson to do well at Brighton you need to have a (Danny) Welbeck next to him,” Molango said.

“Football is not just about putting 25 talented people together, it’s also having people around you who tell you what it’s like to be a pro. We hope that some of the guys here who are more experienced can get a job, because those are the type of people you want to have around a club.”

The PFA is placing great store in the independent regulator to weed out owners whose sole goal is profit.

“You need to get the right people owning and running those clubs,” Molango said.

“Everyone wants to be (an owner in England), so you have the luxury of being able to choose, and you need to choose the right ones.

“Otherwise you bring in people who don’t have the game (at heart), who are not here to help the game.”

This year’s pre-season camp runs for 10 weeks from June 30 to September 4.  It is open to all unattached, out-of-contract players who had a professional contract last season.

The environment mirrors what players would find in their clubs, and gives players an alternative to soul-destroying solo fitness training in the local park.

Now it has proven pedigree it can also point to – over 100 players from a cohort of just over 120 who attended last summer’s camp secured deals.

Clubs have been so impressed that they have organised pre-season friendlies against the PFA squad.

John Swift said he decided to sign up for the camp straight away when he was released by West Brom at the end of the season, having heard good things about last year’s camp from his former Baggies team-mate Joe Wildsmith.

“There’s nothing worse than just being sat home, going to the gym, waiting for your agent to call, hoping that it’s sooner rather than later,” Swift said.

“So I’d rather come in and just do this. It’s somewhere to come, get back fit and get on the pitch, because you can’t replicate what you do out there in the gym.”

Swift turned 30 last month but said he had already met with a couple of clubs potentially interested in signing him.

“As soon as you turn 30 I think the options become a little bit sparse. But now I’m excited to see where I go next,” he said.

In the meantime the camp allows him to keep fit in a club environment while he assesses those options, rather than take the first offer that comes up to avoid the lonely training sessions for one.

“It’s not (always) a question of someone coming here because he doesn’t have a club,” Molango added.

“Some people would have options, it’s just ‘is this the right option?’.

“If you were in the Championship but you haven’t played much, would you accept an offer from League Two in the first week of July?

“If you come here you have the chance to get fit and you can wait for the right option. You’ve got the luxury of being able to wait for the right opportunity.”