Impact on Family Life
The comments on this page might sound a little repetitive in places because we are repeating some key points from an earlier section.
There are written rules about the running of academies and you should make yourselves aware of what you are getting into because the effects on the family are huge! Especially if your child is signed at the age of 7 or 8 because you will need to manage the changes for much longer if your child progresses each year through the academy system.
Families come in all shapes, sizes and formats. This is relevant because you and your partner (if you have one) will need to collaborate to make this work.
Your child will be attending training up to four times a week and play at home and away fixtures. The closer you live to the training facilities the better, but for many, you could be one hour or one hour 30 minutes away if you are in a Category 1 academy and in an U12+ team.
You can only be registered with a club if you live within a limited travel time to the club’s location. The travel times are listed in the table below taken from the Elite Player Performance Plan.
| Category Class | Under 9-11 | Under 12-16 | Under 12-16 | Under 17-21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 Hour | 1 Hour 30 mins | Full Time | No Restriction |
| 2 | 1 Hour | 1 Hours 30 mins | Not Applicable | No Restriction |
| 3 | 1 Hour | 1 Hour 30 mins | Not Applicable | No Restriction |
| 4 | Not Applicable | Not Applicable | Not Applicable | No Restriction |
After school you could be away from home from 3.00pm onwards and not arrive back home until 7:30 at the earliest. Some schools don’t finish until after 4pm, especially in the private sector.
As a parent, you have to think how you are going to manage the logistics for your other children too.
Who does the school run?
How and at what time are you going to feed your children?
When will you have time to provide the support for your child’s homework?
How do you support your other children with their cultural, sports and school endeavours?
The reality these days is often both parents work to financially sustain the family unit, so you may to need to ask your employers for flexible working arrangements, be that working from home or finishing
work early to get your child to training.
All this sounds doable in theory, but it puts a great deal of strain on parents, especially if you are in stressful jobs with a high degree of responsibility or travel away from home on business on a regular basis.
You might need to put your own career aspirations on hold for a while as it may be too difficult to run departments if you aren’t in the office to attend meetings or functions away from the office. The first years in the academy system might go well but as the years roll on, it maybe become more stressful. The stress has the potential to break you, your career and your relationships!
Direct Costs
If you don’t have a well-paid job you will need to think about your travel costs in terms of fuel and the impact on any car lease arrangements, you might have.
You could quite easily add 13,000 miles per year to annual mileage. If you split that across two cars it could well take you over the agreed car lease contracts you signed and subject you to further costs at the end of the car lease contract.
Even if you bought your car outright, the fuel costs alone could amount to £3,000 per year extra. And then there is the extra servicing and tyre costs on top.
This information isn’t published to deter you but to lay out the facts, so you know what you are signing up to.
If your child is in a Category 1 or 2 club some of this cost might be picked up by the academy as they typically lay on coach transport to matches but not always for training.
