Viktor Gyokeres is adapting to unfamiliar environment at Arsenal however he shares frequent floor with two of his new neighbours in north London. Like Tottenham’s Dejan Kulusevski and Lucas Bergvall, he’s a product of IF Brommapojkarna.
Gyokeres, Kulusevski and Bergvall are main graduates of their youth set-up however there are a whole lot extra scattered throughout the continent. This tiny Swedish membership, who wrestle to fill a 5,000-capacity stadium, are mentioned to have the largest academy in Europe.
“We have no fans, really,” sporting director Philip Berglund tells Sky Sports activities. It’s fairly the opening gambit. “Our stadium is very small, ticket income is pretty bad, and it’s hard to compete commercially as the bigger clubs in Stockholm take all the sponsors.”
As a substitute, Brommapojkarna unashamedly focus their efforts on one factor and one factor solely: the event of younger gamers who will be offered for as a lot cash as potential. “Everything we do is built to generate income through transfers,” provides Berglund.
That features having a sprawling community of younger gamers.
From the age of eight up, they’ve roughly as many academy gamers as they do seats of their Grimsta IP stadium. Most play for affiliated grassroots sides, the place they get Brommapojkarna teaching and vie for spots within the ‘status groups’ primarily based on the membership’s headquarters.
These groups usually dominate their home leagues. “In Sweden’s highest U17 league, for example, we currently have one team in first place and another in second,” says Berglund. They routinely beat prestigious opponents in continental tournaments too.
The purpose is for the most effective of the most effective to rise by way of the membership’s youth ranks and ultimately achieve first-team publicity, which is why Brommapojkarna officers celebrated when, having beforehand bounced between divisions, they clinched a club-record third successive season in Sweden’s Allsvenskan top-flight final 12 months.
“Of course, we want to improve our first team and finish as high in the table as possible, but that’s not the main purpose,” says Berglund. “The main purpose of establishing ourselves in the Allsvenskan is so we can put a lot of young players on the pitch at the top level to increase their value.”
That in flip helps Berglund fulfil his acknowledged remit when he arrived from Hammarby, one of many three greater golf equipment primarily based within the Swedish capital together with AIK and Djurgardens, in 2022.
“I came in in the year we came up from the second division with the main goal of starting to sell players for more money than the club had done before,” explains Berglund.
“It helps now to be in the top division because we can sell to big European clubs directly instead of selling to other clubs in Sweden, which is what we have previously done.”
Bergvall and Arrhov gross sales present progress
Bergvall, as soon as a prized academy product at Brommapojkarna, is a working example. The membership secured a 20 per cent sell-on clause once they offered him to Djurgardens three years in the past however it was their rivals who profited most when he joined Tottenham for £8.5m final summer season.
“When we sold Lucas we had just got promoted,” says Berglund. “He only had one year left on his contract so we needed a deal with a good sell-on clause for him to join a top team in Sweden who win a lot of games three-nil and four-nil and can just put in young players.
Dejan Kulusevski acts as a mentor to Lucas Bergvall at Tottenham
“Compare that to us at the time, we were having to fight for every game, to get the points in order to say in the division, so the conditions were not ideal for young players to really shine.”
Gyokeres, who got here later to Brommapojkarna’s academy than Bergvall, aged 14, from one other small membership in Stockholm referred to as IFK Aspudden-Tellus, was a special case given he was offered on to a European crew in Brighton, shifting to England aged 19 in 2018.
However the price, for a participant now valued at over £60m, was modest at below £1m, partly as a result of Gyokeres had not had the possibility to show himself within the high division with Brommapojkarna, who have been enjoying in Sweden’s third and second tiers on the time of his first-team emergence.
Quick ahead to now and the good thing about being settled in Sweden’s top-tier – Brommapojkarna rose from 14th within the season after their promotion to tenth final time period and now sit ninth – will be seen within the club-record sale of 17-year-old midfielder Love Arrhov to Eintracht Frankfurt introduced in Might.
Within the secure situations of mid-table, Arrhov has been in a position to shine for Brommapojkarna, with Frankfurt not solely agreeing to pay a price which might attain eight-figure territory in euros if add-ons are met, however delay his arrival till January, making certain his boyhood membership retain an vital participant for the rest of the Swedish season, which runs from March to November.
Brommapojkarna’s Grimsta IP stadium in western Stockholm holds solely 5,000 followers
The income from his sale, Berglund explains, can be reinvested within the membership’s youth operations. “It’s really important for the club that when we sell someone, we don’t use all that money to buy older first-team players. Instead, we reinvest in the whole club and the grassroots.”
That funding is essential however the productiveness of their academy is at the very least partly right down to the sheer quantity of gamers enrolled. They’ve established a monopoly on younger expertise within the Stockholm space having been one of many first golf equipment in Scandinavia to start out operating academy groups for gamers as younger as eight.
The standard of the teaching and footballing training provided is after all one other issue. The membership are additionally cautious to make sure alignment between their academy and senior sides. Their U17 and U19 coaches double as first-team assistants to assist gamers make the step up.
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Their success has made them a vastly engaging vacation spot to younger gamers. “If you are the best player of your age in Stockholm, you basically always want to play for Bromma,” says Berglund.
However their strategies have raised questions within the nation too.
An ‘unreachable dream’ or a path to observe?
In 2019, the Stockholm-based newspaper Aftonbladet revealed a sequence of articles during which journalist Patrik Brenning revealed many mother and father have been paying disproportionately excessive prices to enrol their kids on the membership and entry further providers comparable to specialist teaching and coaching camps.
“The idea is that it can help their kids fulfil their dream of playing in the Allsvekan, the Premier League or for the Swedish national team,” Brenning tells Sky Sports activities, “but the reality is that so few of them will, which raises the question, is it fair to sell a dream you know is unreachable?”
Brommapojkarna can for his or her half level to a prolonged record of gamers who’ve made it from their academy to the highest degree, with the Frankfurt-bound Arrhov simply the most recent instance.
Love Arrhov in motion for Sweden U17s in opposition to England and Arsenal’s Max Dowman final 12 months
In addition to Gyokeres, Kulusevski and Bergvall, the membership depend former Arsenal winger Anders Limpar, former Manchester Metropolis and Celta Vigo striker John Guidetti and ex-Juventus and Sampdoria midfielder Albin Ekdal amongst their most high-profile graduates.
However the percentages are after all vanishingly small, as they’re for academy gamers in England and throughout Europe. The membership do acknowledge the problems raised by Brenning.
“We now have a ceiling on how much parents can pay each year and the total can’t go over that,” says Berglund. “All our teams also have their own bank accounts, so if they want to go to extra tournaments or things like that, they need to find sponsors to pay.
“We by no means desire a household to not have the ability to afford to be right here. It is actually vital to us that everyone who needs to play soccer can play soccer. After all, our gamers do not all come from wealthy households, so we additionally take the duty to sponsor particular gamers as effectively.”
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Brommapojkarna have been thought to be trailblazers in youth improvement in Sweden however they’re removed from the one membership now attempting to generate revenue by way of high-potential gamers as a precedence.
Brenning likens the scramble to recruit the most effective skills in Stockholm to an “arm’s race”. In Might, Alexander Andersson, a participant poached from Brommapojkarna by Djurgardens, set a document because the youngest participant to function within the Allsvenskan at 15 years and 24 days outdated.
Some within the nation consider the precedence given to younger skills over skilled gamers is taking a toll on the nationwide crew. Regardless of a rising variety of golf equipment growing higher, or at the very least extra sellable, younger gamers, Sweden have solely certified for one of many final 4 main tournaments.
For Brommapojkarna, although, the success tales will maintain coming.
They’ve secured a record-breaking windfall by way of Arrhov however he isn’t the one member of their present facet to have attracted curiosity, with 19-year-old striker Ezekiel Alladoh, scorer of 4 objectives to this point this season, additionally anticipated to fetch a giant price.
In Gyokeres and his new neighbours Kulusevski and Bergvall over in north London, they and the various hundreds of different younger gamers on Brommapojkarna’s books have their inspiration.
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