Eight Scottish Premiership clubs have been selected to "spearhead the elite level" of the Scottish FA's Project Brave, a "radical" new blueprint for youth football, according to Gordon Waddell of Scotland DAILY RECORD. Celtic, Rangers, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian and Aberdeen will be joined by Motherwell, Hamilton and Kilmarnock after a "brutal" application process for academy status. The plan -- more than 18 months in the making -- has caused "huge friction" among most clubs in Scotland’s top two tiers "because of the costs involved in meeting strict new standards and criteria on facilities and staff." Instigated to cull the game’s overblown "Pro Youth" system, which previously had more than 2,300 kids aged 10-17 in 29 "so-called elite academies," the plan was to create a top tier of "best v best" and for the SFA’s £2.2M ($2.9M) budget to be "spent on outcomes rather than grant funding." However, the prohibitive costs of some of the standards set have "led to the exclusion of some of the country’s most productive academies" (DAILY RECORD, 11/12).
