The Scottish Football Association is preparing to confront the country's top clubs over their reluctance to trust young homegrown talent, with a landmark forum scheduled for next month at St Andrews. Billed as 'Made In Scotland?', the summit will see SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell and chief football officer Craig Mulholland appeal directly to Premiership owners and executives to rethink how they develop and deploy academy players.
The timing could hardly be sharper. News emerged that Sevilla are interested in signing striker Robbie Ure from Swedish side IK Sirius for a fee close to £8 million. Ure, now 22, has scored 15 goals in 15 appearances this season, including 10 in his last six matches. It is a remarkable turnaround for a player Rangers let leave for nothing after handing him minimal opportunities.
Ure made his Rangers debut at 18 with a goalscoring cameo against Queen of the South in a League Cup tie in August 2022. But over the rest of that campaign he received just two further appearances - a single minute each against St Mirren in November and Hibernian the following May. During that period, Rangers instead invested roughly £6m on Danilo and £3.5m on Sam Lammers, players occupying similar positions to Ure, with combined costs including wages reportedly exceeding £14m. Unable to find a route into the first team, Ure departed for Anderlecht before moving on to Sirius, where he has since flourished.
The case echoes Celtic's experience with Ben Doak - now known as Ben Gannon-Doak - who was given little first-team exposure before leaving for English football, another academy product whose potential was realized elsewhere.
Statistics from the opening two rounds of this season's Premiership underline the scale of the issue facing Scottish football. Only 31% of players featuring in those matches were Scottish, and just 5% were Scots aged 21 or under. Players from 46 different nations took part. Dundee United's case stood out starkly, having used only one Scottish player, Dylan Tait, across their opening two fixtures.
Clubs frequently insist they are committed to developing local talent, yet the flow of promising Scottish teenagers moving to England continues. Dundee United lost 16-year-old Kai Hutchison to Everton. Celtic have seen Dara Jikiemi join Liverpool and Daniel Cummings sign for West Ham. Rangers lost Cameron Scott to Burnley and Chris Eadie to Sheffield United, while Hearts saw Boyd Fraser depart for Nottingham Forest and Keir McMeekin for Manchester City. Hibernian, meanwhile, lost Ben Vickery to Manchester City and Josh Landers to West Ham.
While financial incentives play a role in these departures, a lack of genuine pathway opportunities at home is seen as an equally significant factor. Many clubs continue to recruit foreign journeymen for squad depth, leaving young Scottish prospects and their families questioning whether staying is worthwhile.
This is not the first attempt by the SFA to shift attitudes. A 114-page Transition report published in August 2024, authored by former SFA staff Andy Gould and Chris Docherty, laid out extensive data on the financial and footballing benefits of trusting youth, drawing on examples from clubs across Europe that profited from developing and selling academy talent. Despite its detail, the report's central message went largely unheeded. A follow-up report of 133 pages arrived in October 2025, again from Gould and Docherty - both of whom have since left the SFA.
As Maxwell and Mulholland prepare to make their case once more, they face a difficult balancing act: persuading self-interested clubs that nurturing young Scottish players serves their own ambitions, not just the long-term health of the national team. Whether the message lands this time remains to be seen, but the stakes - illustrated vividly by Ure's rise abroad - are becoming harder to ignore.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport.