REVEALED: Football League clubs who give youth a chance... but eight sides have failed to start a single young and home-grown player this season 

• Brighton one of eight EFL teams yet to field young, home-grown player
• Norwich also failed to field youngster during first four months of campaign
• Coventry have accumulated 74 appearances made by players under 21
• The EFL will reward clubs for promoting young, domestic talent

Eight clubs in the Football League have failed to start a game with a single young and home-grown player in the opening four months of this season.

Brighton, Norwich, Cardiff, Preston, QPR, Bolton, MK Dons and Newport are the teams in question.

They have not named one player in the starting line-up who was under 21 as of June 30 this year and is eligible for England or, in the case of the Welsh clubs, Wales.

These are the criteria for the radical EFL Futures initiative which will offer cash rewards to the clubs who blood most young players this season.

Coventry, struggling with financial problems which have forced them to promote their youth team players, were leading the way at the end of November.

The League One club have accumulated a total of 74 appearances made by English players under 21, such as 19-year-old midfielder Ben Stevenson, who has been involved in 13 league matches since making his debut in August.

Swindon are a distant second with 45, followed by Crewe (44).

The EFL has set aside £2.25million over three years which will be divided among the 72 clubs proportionally, depending on how many appearances they muster before the end of the season.

The plan is to encourage clubs to generate more opportunities at first-team level.

EFL chief executive Shaun Harvey said he would attempt to boost the incentives if he was able to secure further backing from sponsors and commercial partners.

‘It is there to reward those clubs who give starting opportunities to English and Welsh under 21 players,’ said Harvey. ‘Clubs will finally have an incentive to give young players an opportunity. There’s a real need and desire to create that pathway.

‘Mandatory quotas don’t always work in my book. What we’re doing is trying to create opportunities. This is about bringing players through a development scheme and into first-team football.

‘We want to be part-building an England team for the future based around our clubs and the benefit our clubs will get from it.

‘The majority of the England team today did not make their senior debuts at the Premier League club they now play for.

‘We want the future generation of England players to be involved in the EFL, either on loan from Premier League clubs or through our own academies.’

Sky Sports will engage with the scheme during their television coverage, starting with Friday night’s live Championship match between Brighton and Leeds, the first of their festive 10 live EFL games in 10 days.

All players who qualify as ‘Futures’ players will be identified on screen with a letter F inside a red circle alongside their names.

‘We think recognition is massively important,’ said Harvey. ‘We want fans to get to know the young players coming through who are English qualified and look back and remember seeing his debut or watching him play.’

The scheme has been in operation since the start of the season with appearances made by 185 different under 21 players from about 2,300 registered players across three divisions.

Full lists of numbers will be published at the end of the season and will work as a guide for the parents of young players who want to know at which clubs their children might expect to get a chance.

Charlton manager Karl Robinson, who guided Dele Alli through the youth ranks and into the first team at MK Dons, believes some parents are turning away from the big Premier League academies because young players are not finding opportunities at the right time to develop into first-team footballers.

‘It’s not about the buildings and the perfect grass,’ said Robinson. ‘It’s where talent meets opportunity.

‘It’s changed because I know people are leaving Premier League academies and coming down to clubs in the EFL. This scheme will promote the growth of young players in this country.’