Special report: The messy exit of a previously highly regarded young player has raised wider concerns over systemic issues in club's academy
Like Boy A, Alexander-Arnold and Jones joined at a very young age before signing official forms at the age of nine. All players are then reviewed across two-year periods, with registrations extended if development meets expectations.but he chose Liverpool. The commitment involved two training sessions a week at the club’s indoor facility, then a match at the weekend.
“ has a good understanding of the game and has made progress in this area,” the report concluded. “He is controlling his emotions much better now and this allows him to stay in the learning zone. Keep working hard…” Marshall admitted that he “really liked” the boy as a player and person and this may have contributed towards him using more positive language than he would normally use.
In April 2022, the parents of Boy A had met with Marshall where they were told that the club wished to defer any decision about his future because of the injury and he was instead being offered a 12-week trial. Subsequently, on May 1, Dr Bevin McCartan, Liverpool’s head of academy medical services, wrote to the mother expressing sympathy with Boy A over the uncertainty surrounding his future and saying she was “happy to facilitate access to mental health services for him”.
Liverpool concluded that the coaches interviewed as part of the internal investigation had “not noted any concerns about Boy A’s mental health during the period of inactivity due to injury.” This extended into his subsequent trial. They also said that the help available to him was signposted clearly and there was no evidence he was denied the care and support he was entitled to.
“There does not appear to be a clear agenda for the meetings and attendance ranges from seven attendees to just two,” the report states. “There are no details noted around the time that the injury was diagnosed in early-to-mid-February and there do not appear to be any notes flagging any concerns around Boy A requiring any further intervention from a mental health perspective. If these meetings are the primary source of information sharing, then the current process is inadequate.
Roscoe was not interviewed in the investigation and his name is mentioned only twice in the report. Liverpool deny that he was solely responsible for any exit strategy but his departure in May would have created an absence of experience at the heart of the academy, which would have been invaluable in unusual cases such as Boy A’s.
It took them two months to file their report with the family. During this period, Liverpool referred the findings of the investigation to an independent legal firm, which reviewed the complaints and assessed whether the report responded adequately. “Since his release, he’s retreated into himself,” his mother adds. “He spends a lot of time in his room. It’s been left to the family to try and pick him up.”
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