For a club that built its identity on producing homegrown heroes, Celtic’s academy now raises more questions than answers.
There was a time when Celtic didn’t just buy footballers – they made them.
The Lisbon Lions famously conquered Europe with a team born within a 30-mile radius of Celtic Park. The generations that followed gave us Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, Paul McStay, Charlie Nicholas and Tommy Burns. More recently, James Forrest, Kieran Tierney, Callum McGregor and Anthony Ralston proved that local talent could still reach the very top.
But then you look at the last decade.
Why has the production line almost ground to a halt?
Why are so few academy graduates becoming established Celtic first-team players?
And perhaps the biggest question of all…
What has gone wrong?
The list of talented youngsters leaving Celtic grows longer every year.
Ben Doak left for Liverpool.
Liam Morrison and Barry Hepburn headed to Bayern Munich.
Josh Adam joined Manchester City.
Dara Jikiemi chose Liverpool.
Armstrong Oko-Flex moved on to West Ham.
Rocco Vata left in search of first-team football.
Add Aidan Borland, Rory Mahady and others to that list and a worrying pattern begins to emerge.
These aren’t youngsters Celtic deemed not good enough. Many were among Scotland’s brightest prospects.
So why aren’t they seeing a future at Celtic?
Is the pathway blocked?
Is first-team football arriving too late?
Or are Europe’s biggest clubs simply too attractive when they come calling?
The uncomfortable truth is that since Callum McGregor and Anthony Ralston, genuine academy success stories have been few and far between.
For a club of Celtic’s stature, that should concern everyone.
Why is this happening?
There isn’t one simple answer.
Modern football has changed dramatically.
The financial gap between Scotland and England is enormous. Premier League clubs can offer facilities, wages and development opportunities that Scottish football simply cannot match.
The old Reserve League, where teenagers learned alongside experienced professionals, has disappeared. Today’s academy football can often be too sheltered, with youngsters progressing through age groups rather than battling seasoned professionals week after week.
Street football has also largely vanished. Previous generations developed naturally through endless games in parks and streets. Today’s youngsters are coached from an early age, but some argue that creativity and resilience have suffered as a result.
Then there is Celtic themselves.
How many academy players genuinely believe they have a realistic chance?
Too often the club appears quicker to sign a squad player from abroad than trust a teenager who has spent ten years wearing the Hoops.
Supporters understand buying quality.
But they also understand identity.
Without local players coming through, something important begins to disappear.
Are Celtic becoming a feeder club?
It is an uncomfortable question, but one worth asking.
Are we developing players primarily for Europe’s elite?
If youngsters believe Liverpool, Bayern Munich or Manchester City provide a clearer route to elite football than Celtic, then the academy has a serious perception problem.
Losing the occasional wonderkid is unavoidable.
Losing them year after year is not.
Is there a solution?
There is no magic fix, but there are clear steps Celtic could take.
The pathway from academy to first team must be visible.
Young players need meaningful opportunities, not token appearances when games are already won.
Loans must be carefully planned.
The B team pathway must prepare players for senior football, not simply more youth football.
Most importantly, the club needs complete alignment—from the academy coaches to Martin O’Neill and the board—on one objective: producing first-team Celtic players rather than simply talented academy graduates.
Because if Celtic cannot convince Scotland’s best young footballers that Paradise is the best place to build their careers, somebody else always will.
The greatest chapters in Celtic’s history were written by players who grew up dreaming of pulling on the green and white hoops. If that dream is fading, then restoring belief in the academy may be one of the biggest jobs facing the club.
Philip you are really stretching it by calling Anthony Ralston a success story – he is extremely limited and I believe he is only retained as we need a quota of homegrown players for European competition. We should have a much better back-up/squad player than Anthony and the same goes for Colby. They would both struggle to be first choice full-back in the majority of teams in the SPFL and when you look at some of the standards then that is rather damning. I am afraid the best talent will be snapped up by English teams (because a consequence of Brexit is they can’t go after young European talent now like they used to) who can offer young boys £25,000 per week when we are offering £2,000 – £3,000. The difference over the course of a 4 year contract is over £4.5m. You can say what you want about ambition and playing games but those sort of sums can set these young boys and their families up for life. The fact that players in Scotland are paying 3% extra in Income Tax doesn’t help either – helps to pay for free university education for the sons and daughters of millionaires so that’s ok then although I must admit I do love my bus pass. The dream of any young Celtic fan coming through the academy is to play for us and even though we gave Ben Gannon-Doak game time and promised him a pathway he, as a passionate Celtic fan, still chose to chase the money and possibly the better league. If my son had been good enough then of course I would have wanted him to play for Celtic but when the financial disparity is so stark and the pathway to regular first team football appears so limited then the chances are I would have driven him down to Liverpool myself.