Shay Boyle: Developmental issues send more and more young domestic players abroad

Staff Writer

The tyranny of distance remains a challenge for many young Australian footballers looking for opportunities abroad, yet domestic developmental issues for talented teenagers like Shay Boyle also play a role.

Australian parents spend tens of thousands of dollars on academy and registration fees from a very young age; often over-estimating the talent their son or daughter possesses. They are tempted by fame and fortune and lured into the trappings of football professionalism, potentially unaware of just how difficult the road can be.

With obvious failings in Australia when it comes to development, it is highly likely that a significant percentage of our best young players are not fulfilling their enormous potential by remaining on local shores. That fact is causing more and more players to look and head abroad in search of the skills and knowledge required to be a top class professional.

There is a vast chasm between the talented Aussie youngster, seemingly with magic at their feet and the polished and experienced professionals in the lower leagues of European football. No doubt, our best young players can succeed if given the opportunity abroad, however, knowing the recruitment and scouting game is paramount. Parents with experience in it could potentially have much to share with those less versed in the idiosyncrasies of the system.

One man with plenty of experience and nous when it comes to such matters is James Boyle. A Scotsman, he immigrated to Australia in 2010 and in 2018 launched the Football Business Network; an organisation designed to forge connections between the football and corporate worlds, providing mutual benefit.

An astute coach, Boyle has experience at numerous Sydney based NPL clubs and will be working under Rydalmere FC head coach Gavin Rae in season 2020.  He also has a talented young footballer for a son.

The eldest of his twins, Shay, has recently taken a leap of faith and ventured abroad; granted a spot at the Fleetwood Town FC International Football Academy. The club competes in England’s third tier, League One and stands a chance at promotion after some excellent recent form.

The academy aims to locate and enlist international talent oft dismissed in its domestic setting, something Shay has lived his entire footballing life thanks to his diminutive frame.

The young Boyle has found his football pot of gold with Fleetwood Town. After years of toil, disappointment and some success, a trial with Getafe FC’s youth academy and some interest from Scottish giants Celtic, led to a scout making contact with the Boyle’s in the land down under.

Fleetwood Town were interested and after viewing a professional and extensive YouTube clip that featured edited highlights from hours and hours of his play, Shay was offered a six month placement and flew to the northern hemisphere just before Christmas.

The senior Boyle to me expressed his undeniable belief in the importance of such a professional digital package being presented to prospective clubs. Mounting a compelling case for an international academy to take a punt on a young man from the other side of the world is a challenge, yet Shay’s presentation convinced Fleetwood Town that there was indeed something worth pursuing. The teenager’s professional journey has begun, albeit far from home.

Not a tall boy, Shay has battled against perceptions of physical weakness throughout his career. Year after year, the now 16-year-old was told that his skills were more than adequate, yet that the modern game accommodated few players of his stature. Footballers continue to improve as athletes and the thinking appears to be that potential at a young age is measured by frame size and not always the skills possessed by the athlete.

Boyle has been dogged by such opinions in the Australian domestic scene. Frustrated, his view is that his son may never have received such recognition in his adopted home, thanks to a valuing of size above skill.

It is undoubtedly true that more and more imposing men are taking up the game around the globe and the next generation will once again prove to be bigger and more powerful than the next. Yet for every menacing centre-back, there is a dexterous genius capable of embarrassing the taller and more cumbersome man.

Shay Boyle has always been that player. After watching the scouting clip, it is clear he is undoubtedly skilled and blessed with a football mind and spatial vision. James constantly used former Italian International Andrea Pirlo’s words, “Football is played with the mind and the feet are the tools” as he worked with Shay as a junior footballer.

That sentiment has been the cornerstone of his development as a player.

Socceroos and Olyroos coach Graham Arnold recently called for further investment in the national youth teams, also stating that he sees little being done to develop domestic talent. Whilst Boyle is now receiving the tuition and competition he requires to test himself, Australian football has lost another promising player and depth.

Boyle senior has set up a Facebook page to assist parents of Australian players and arm them with the knowledge required when it comes to pathways towards international academies and opportunities abroad.

Visit YSA – Youth Soccer Australia – Information and Agency on Facebook.com, follow the page and use the collective wisdom of coaches, administrators and parents to inform your knowledge of the sometimes confusing structures in professional football.

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The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

Football Has the Audience. Does It Have the Commercial Strategy?

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Image Credit: One Nil Media

Soccerscene has launched Survey 4: Commercial Confidence in Football, calling on clubs, sponsors, governing bodies, commercial leaders and football industry professionals to assess whether the game is making the most of its enormous commercial potential.

Football has the audience, participation base and community reach to be one of Australia’s most powerful commercial platforms. But does the industry have the commercial strategy, professionalism and infrastructure required to turn that potential into sustainable growth?

That is the question at the centre of Soccerscene’s latest industry research.

The survey examines how attractive grassroots football is to potential commercial partners, what industry professionals believe is limiting football’s commercial potential, and whether clubs are presenting themselves professionally enough to sponsors.

It also explores what sponsors value most when engaging with football – from community reach and participation scale to brand alignment, values and purpose – as well as whether improved facilities could directly contribute to stronger sponsorship outcomes.

Is football fully capitalising on its commercial opportunity?

Football continues to provide brands with access to highly engaged communities across grassroots, community and elite environments. Yet the commercial landscape remains fragmented, with clubs operating with vastly different levels of resources, capability, governance, media infrastructure and commercial expertise.

Soccerscene’s survey is designed to capture the industry’s perspective on where the opportunities exist – and where football may be leaving commercial value on the table.

The research will look specifically at four key areas:

  • Commercial attractiveness – How attractive is grassroots football as a commercial partnership?
  • Commercial barriers – What is holding football back from reaching its full commercial potential?
  • Club professionalism – Are clubs presenting themselves effectively and professionally to sponsors?
  • Sponsor value – What are sponsors really looking for when they invest in football?

The survey also asks whether better facilities would have a direct impact on sponsorship outcomes, highlighting the potential relationship between infrastructure, commercial presentation and investment.

Have your say

Soccerscene is encouraging football clubs, sponsors, commercial professionals, governing bodies, administrators, media professionals and industry stakeholders to participate.

The findings will contribute to Soccerscene’s ongoing program of industry research, designed to provide a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities facing football and the organisations operating within it.

Take the Survey: Commercial Confidence in Football

Complete the Commercial Confidence in Football Survey here

The survey will close on 30 August 2026 at midnight, with responses received before the deadline included in the final analysis.

Football has the audience. The question is whether it has the commercial strategy to match.

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