Harry Redknapp shares worrying warning for future of English football as he reveals epidemic spreading through academies

FORMER manager Harry Redknapp has outlined what he believes is a key problem in youth football.

The 76-year-old spent over 30 years as a manager after hanging up his boots.

SplashHarry Redknapp believes there are too many inexperienced coaches in youth football[/caption]

He began his managerial career as a player-coach at Seattle Sounders.

Redknapp went on to take over the likes of Oxford City, Portsmouth, West Ham, Bournemouth, Southampton, QPR and Tottenham before retiring in 2017.

The former midfielder has since dipped in and out of the game, but he regularly offers his opinion on it.

And he recently suggested that too many coaches at youth level do not have enough experience playing football and instead get crucial information from online.

Redknapp told Project Footballer: “The problem is 80 per cent of the young coaches that work at football clubs have never played football or don’t play football.

“They’re 24, 25 a lot of them. They don’t play. They don’t know. They’ve never been there, they’ve never been in that position, they’ve never seen that pass.

“They’ve never had the ups and downs of a young footballer who wants to be a player.

“They don’t play. They’re academics and academics are running the game at the moment at youth level.

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“There’s no doubt about it in my mind. I see them, I watch them, I listen to them and I ask them: How old are you? ‘I’m 24’.

“Don’t you play? ‘No, I don’t play’.

“But they’ve all learned the game on computers and studying the game, but they’ve never probably kicked the ball.

“And it’s very difficult when you’re playing with kids and you’re trying to help them and you’ve never actually kicked the ball or played football at any level.

“It’s certainly more and more. It’s very difficult.”