England's mistake was long forseen

Jarrod Hill believes a lot of the woes that the England team have recently faced could have been avoided - if the Football Association had listened in the past.

Now that the dust has started to settle on yet another disappointing World Cup campaign, everyone is looking at the England team and asking the question, what happens now?

Howard Wilkinson, the Football Association's former Technical Director, believes that our development of young players needs to become more structured, focusing more on technical and tactical awareness than physical fitness training.

His 'Charter for Quality' described a national academy system that from grass roots level pays greater attention to developing individuals technical education and dismissing the need to produce youth sides that win football matches.

Wilkinson believed the focus to produce youth sides that win games only encourages clubs to recruit the biggest and strongest boys, at a young age and not to develop the skills of the technically gifted.

He went on to describe a system that only allows small pitches and teams of five to seven players to help focus playing time on developing skill levels.

He also states that it is IMPERATIVE that we have a national development centre for our youth players up to the age of 23, whilst mentioning the possible need to focus tactical awareness towards playing a more forward thinking formation of 4-3-3 or 4-5-1.

This depended on shape and possession of the ball, as he views this as how all national sides will play in the near future.

I know what you are all thinking, sounds great but your timing is lousy Howard, but what if I told you Howard Wilkinson wrote this back in 1998?

He was asked by the FA to write a report and discuss possible changes to our youth development, that would ensure our national side progresses. His research included visiting countries across the world and speaking to experienced world renowned coaches, leaving no stone unturned and his report was well received.

But the FA did not act upon it, they never gave any reasons they just ignored it. We still do not have a recognised national development centre for our youth sides 12 years on, the FA re-built Wembley and I can only imagine they thought that was job done!

Now comes the really staggering and quite simply baffling news. Other countries, namely Germany looked at Howard Wilkinson's report and recognised its usefulness, so went about implementing many of Wilkinson's suggestions.

They focused on building a system that would produce and develop young players good enough to take them to the World Cup final in 2014. The young team that demolished our boys 4-1 are meant to be ready in four years time!

Why our FA continues to bury its collective head in the sand could have many reasons. It could be the fact is it is a large organisation with millions of pounds at its disposal, money which is meant to go towards protecting and developing football in England.

Yet, other than Trevor Brooking, there isn't another 'football man' within the upper echelons of the organisation.

Maybe the FA are too focused on ensuring the golden goose, or Premier League as we know it, continues to be arguably the most commercially attractive league of football in the world.

Maybe Wilkinson's charter would have upset too many of the top clubs to have been 'workable' for them, or more likely it was not in the best interests of the Manchester United's and Liverpool's of this world, as elements of the charter would have restricted their worldwide youth scouting systems.

It has been known for years that our FA is more than just influenced by our top clubs in England, it is practically run by them.

So what if England have had a disastrous World Cup, so what that we now develop less players than ever before, so long as Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal all have success this season, do we really think that the foreign owners of these clubs give a damn about our national side?

The answer is no, pretty much the same answer the FA gave to Howard Wilkinson and his 'Charter for Quality' back in 1998.

And now look where we are.