I'm sure Josu can inform us in much greater detail, but their policy these days is actually not as strict as people tend to think.
First of all, it's not just the Basque Country that's taken into consideration, but also La Rioja and Navarre (the greater Basque lands of course, but where afaik the penetration of basque is not that deep), as well as the french basque country.
Secondly, players who have been educated in this catchment area are eligible regardless of origin. In their academy they have or have had foreign players.
Here we have to do some political considerations.
When we say Basque only policy, we are not talking about basque automous comunity. Historical or cultural basque country is more wide than basque autonomous comunity. Hence, we consider that Navarre and French Basque country as Basque country, in consequence is our catchment area, because we consider them as Basque cultural area. We have to difference between the administrative basque country and the cultural basque country.
On the other hand, if a boy who is not basque, but has been educated in a natural way in basque country, then he is elegible. By educated in a natural way I mean that Athletic Club is never going to catch a 10 years old boy in for example Brazil and offer his parents a job. If parents have emigrated to basque country because they wanted, the we may select the boy.
Finally we can find La Rioja issue. It is very complicated and controversial to explain this because historical links between biscay an La rioja are VERY STRONG, so in some years of our history, we selected some players born in La Rioja that were educated in La Rioja. Right now we take care a lot about this issue, but we can find here the less strict area in our policy. La Rioja is not very big, so it is very easy that a Riojan football player has played in a Basque team in a very natural way.
What is absolutelly true is that we search for young players in other local teams in the same way other teams are doing. We are not infallible and obviously every boy we pick up with 10 years is not going to arrive to the first team.
Right now there are some foreing players in youth academy. There is at least a boy from Mali, a South American boy, can not remember the country, and a portuguese one, whose parents emigrate to basque country in order to search a work. As I have heard none of them will became professional, maybe the portuguese one. We have as well a boy from French Basque country, defender, that people is saying that will be top class.
The philosophy of the club has thus evolved and been redefined over the years. These days it seems to be more about promoting players nurtured in their academy. A few months ago, for example, I think there was an historic moment when they fielded 11 players from outside Vizcaya (the province where Bilbao lies) for the first time ever.
Absolutelly true, in the very begining, English players were able to play in Athletic Club, in the 1910's, we were wining all the cups played, so some clubes complained about this issue. We get very pissed so we played the next cup just with basque players. We won.
First time with 11 playefrs from outside biscay was about a year ago against Real Zaragoza.
This day we are trying to use more players from youth academy, as allways should be. From 1995 to 2002 we played a new rich role, buying several players for big ammounts. I hope the managers have realised that it is cheaper spending money in youth academy than buying profesional players and is more according to our policy.
From the current team we have a mayority of youth academy players. Our ideal current 11 is : Iraizoz, Iraola, Javi Martinez,Amorebieta, Aurtenetxe, Herrera, De Marcos, Iturraspe, Susaeta, Llorente and Muniain.
Iraizoz arrived to our youth team with 17 years, played one, we loaned to a local team, and we discard him, went to Espanyol, then we payed 5M € for him some years later
Iraola: Youth team since he was 15
Javi Martinez: paid for him 6M € when he was 17, deserves each penny
Amorebieta: Youth team since he was 8
Aurtenetxe: Youth team since he was 8
Herrera: it is not clear how much we paid, about 6M €
De Marcos: paid 1M € for him, we bought to play in reserves team
Iturraspe: Youth team since he was 14, he left one year because he was feelling dbad because wanted to play with friends, came back later
Susaeta: Youth team since he was 8
Llorente: Youth team since he was 11
Munian: Youth team he was 11, he started to train with first team while being 14
Another less romantic aspect of their policy (or policies) over the years has been the controversy with other basque clubs, which have accused Athletic of ransacking their academies and buying all the local talent. Real Sociedad used to have the same policy up until 20 years ago but cited that as a reason (or excuse) to abandon it. But I guess that's the same everywhere: the richer and more powerful clubs always end up with the best local, national or international players depending on where they stand in the food chain.
No, this is not true, Real Sociedad did not change their policy because of ransacking their academies. In fact, when they changed the policy we were not taking youth players from Real Sociedad. We were paying for them while they were in the first team, and they were happy to sell them. They only started to complain when we joined Joseba Etxeberria in 1995
Their policy change happened in 1987, when John Aldridge joined them. It happened because J.B. Toshack said that this team with a pair of foreign people would be able to win the league.
Finally Athletic Club does not ransack anything, the law about joinin youth players is cutting and we respect it. Well, some years ago we have an issue with a Real Sociedad first team's player, not a youth player, but this is another issue and we ended paying more than player deserves
- best striker in the world inside the penalty area. Maybe even the best striker in the world, period.
FTW
).
