Viktor Gyokerres: The new signature of Arsenal is a graduate of Si Brompojkarna, the Swedish club with “ no fans’ but the largest academy in Europe | Football news

Viktor Gyokerres adapts to an unknown environment in Arsenal, but he shares Common Ground with two of his new neighbors in northern London. Like the Dejan Kulusevski from Tottenham and Lucas Bergvall, he is a product of Brumapojkarna.

Gyokerres, Kulusevski and Bergvall are the graduates of their installation of young people, but there are hundreds of others dispersed across the continent. This tiny Swedish club, which has trouble filling a stadium of 5,000 inhabitants, has the largest academy in Europe.

“We have no fans, really,” says sports director Philip Berglund Sky Sports. It is completely the opening gambit. “Our stadium is very small, ticket income is quite bad, and it is difficult to compete commercially, because the biggest clubs in Stockholm take all the sponsors.”

Instead, Brommapojkarna concentrates their efforts without shame on one thing and only one thing: the development of young players who can be sold for as much money as possible. “Everything we do is built to generate income through transfers,” adds Berglund.

This includes a sprawling network of young players.

From the age of eight, they have about as many players from the Academy as they make seats in their IP Grimsta stadium. Most play for affiliated basic teams, where they obtain the Brommapojkarna training and compete for spots in the “prestigious teams” based at the club’s headquarters.

These teams generally dominate their interior leagues. “In the highest U17 League in Sweden, for example, we currently have a team in first place and another in second,” explains Berglund. They regularly beat prestigious opponents in continental tournaments.

The objective is the best of the best to get up in the ranks of young people from the club and finally obtain an exhibition at the first team, which is why the officials of Brommapojkarna celebrated when, after having bounced between the divisions, they won a third successive season of the club in Sweden of Alsvenskan Top-Flight last year.

“Of course, we want to improve our first team and finish as high as possible in the table as possible, but this is not the main objective,” explains Berglund. “The main goal of establishing us in Allsvenskan is that we can put many young players on the field at the highest level to increase their value.”

This helps in turn Berglund to achieve his declared mandate when he arrived from Hammarby, one of the three largest clubs based in the Swedish capital with Aik and Djurgardens, in 2022.

“I arrived the year we came from the second division with the main objective of starting to sell players for more money than the club had done it before,” said Berglund.

“It now helps to be in the higher division because we can sell directly to the big European clubs instead of selling to other clubs in Sweden, which we have done before.”

Sales of Bergvall and Arrhov show progress

Bergvall, formerly a product of the prized academy in Brommapojkarna, is an example. The club obtained a 20% sales clause when they sold it to Djurgardens three years ago, but it was their rivals that took the most when it joined Tottenham for 8.5 million pounds Sterling last summer.

“When we sold Lucas, we had just promoted,” said Berglund. “He only had a year left on his contract, so we needed an agreement with a good sales clause to join a high-level team in Sweden who won many three-null games and eighty and can simply put young players.

“Compare this to us at the time, we had to fight for each match, to get the points to say it in the division, so the conditions were not ideal for young players to really shine.”

Gyokerres, who came later to the Academy of Brommojkarna that Bergvall, 14, from another small Stockholm club, called Ifk Aspudden-Tellus, was a different case since he was Sold directly to a European team in Brighton, moving to England at the age of 19 in 2018.

But the costs, for a player now evaluated at more than 60 million pounds sterling, were modest at less than 1 million pounds sterling, in part because Gyoker had not had the chance to prove himself in the upper division with Brommojkarna, who played in the third and second levels of Sweden at the time of his emergence in the first team.

Quick advance so far and the advantage of being installed in the upper level of Sweden – Brommapojkarna has gone from 14th of the season after their promotion in the last 10th quarter and is now seated ninth – can be seen during the sale of the club’s club -record, announced the 17 -year -old midfielder to Eintracht Frankfurt in May.

In the stable conditions of the middle of the table, Arrhov was able to shine for Brommapojkarna, with Francfurt agreeing not only to pay costs which could reach an eight -digit territory if additional modules are filled, but delay his arrival until January, guaranteeing to his childhood club to keep an important player for the rest of the Swedish season, which takes place from March to November.

The profits from its sale, explains Berglund, will be reinvested in the operations of young people from the club. “It is really important for the club that when we sell someone, we do not use all this money to buy older team players. Instead, we reinvest throughout the club and the base.”

This investment is essential, but the productivity of their academy is at least partly due to the volume of registered players. They established a monopoly on young talents in the Stockholm region after being one of the first clubs in Scandinavia to start leading teams from the Academy for eight -year -old players.

The quality of the education of coaches and football offered is of course another factor. The club also pays attention to the alignment between their academic and senior teams. Their U17 and U19 coaches double as a first team assistant to help players take the plunge.

Their success has made it an extremely attractive destination for young players. “If you are the best player your age in Stockholm, you still want to play for Brom,” says Berglund.

But their methods have also raised questions in the country.

An “inaccessible dream” or a path to follow?

In 2019, the newspaper based in Stockholm AFTONBLADET has published a series of articles in which journalist Patrik Brenning revealed that many parents paid disproportionately high costs to register their children at the club and access additional services such as specialized coaches and training camps.

“The idea is that it can help their children realize their dream of playing in Allsvekan, the Premier League or for the Swedish national team,” explains Brenning Sky Sports“But the reality is that so few of them, which raises the question, is it right to sell a dream you know is inaccessible?”

Brommapojkarna can for their role point a long list of players who have gone from their academy to the highest level, with Arhov for Frankfurt just the last example.

As well as Gyokerres, Kulusevski and Bergvall, the former winger of Arsenal, Anders Limar, the former Manchester City striker and Celta Vigo John Guidetti and the former midfielder of Juventus and Sampdoria, Albin Ekdal, among their strongest graduates.

But the percentages are of course intended for evolution, as for academics in England and through Europe. The club recognizes the questions raised by Brenning.

“We now have a ceiling on the amount of parents who can pay each year and the total cannot review,” said Berglund. “All our teams also have their own bank accounts, so if they want to go to additional tournaments or to things like that, they must find sponsors to pay.

“We never want a family that can not afford to be here. It is really important for us that all those who want to play football can play football. Of course, our players do not all come from rich families, so we also take responsibility for also sponsor specific players.”

The Brommapojkarna were considered as pioneers in the development of young people in Sweden, but they are far from being the only club which is now trying to generate profits through players with high potential in priority.

Brenning compares the race to recruit the best talents in Stockholm to an “arm of arms”. In May, Alexander Andersson, a poached player of Brommojkarna by Djurgardens, set a record as a younger player to appear in Allsvenskan at 15 and 24 days.

Some in the country believe that the priority given to young talents on experienced players is wreaking havoc in the national team. Despite an increasing number of clubs that develop better, or at least more harder, young players, Sweden has only qualified for one of the last four major tournaments.

For Brommapojkarna, however, the success stories will continue to come.

They obtained a record round by Arrhov, but he is not the only member of their current team to have aroused interest, with the 19 -year -old striker, Ezekiel Alladoh, marker of four goals so far this season, also expected significant costs.

In Gyokerres and his new neighbors Kulusvski and Bergvall in northern London, they and the thousands of other young players from the Brumapojkarna books were inspired.

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