Ronnie Screwvala Quotes

I want to help grow the game in India and encourage young kids to play football.

I remember when I was training with St Mirren as a young boy Ralston was my Hampden and my Wembley.

I played for Barcelona, for Ajax, where it's important to develop and integrate young talent.

There has been a great list of players who cut their teeth in Europe.

These kids are the future of the National Football League. They're the next generation that will be playing high school football, NCAA football, and some even to the pros.

It's disappointing to see how football, the world's No. 1 sport, is not No. 1 when it comes to development. It seems to me that a wealth of practical football knowledge is being squandered.

I think that it is advantageous to join Bayern Munich at a young age.

Little details about young footballers catch your eye when you have been around a big club for a long time. At first, it can be minor things, like the way certain young players stand out from the group when the academy lads cross paths with the senior team on their way to training in the morning.

For me, playing through all the youth teams at Borussia Dortmund was a really good experience because I was able to play against talented opponents at a relatively early age.

Me being at Coventry, instead of a big Premier League club, probably helped me develop. You don't get put in the academy system, playing Under-18s and Under-23s.

I was a promising keeper as a kid and, at 15 and 16, was on the books of Crewe Alexandra.

I started playing full-equipment football when I was 6 years old. My mom actually got me started in it.

I got my first taste of real professional football on loan at Northampton. I was 18 at the time, and I played only nine games, but it was a massive opportunity for me.

In Holland you go into amateur teams, come up through the ranks and are generally spotted for senior or professional football. At 16, I had made it into a men's amateur team, and was picked up professionally from there.

If I had the opportunity, I will ask every Nigerian kid to start his career in Germany. The structure they have in the Bundesliga is far from what is obtainable in other leagues.

A lot of the guys who played in the 1995 final for Ajax had been there since the age of 12 or 13. Patrick Kluivert and Edgar Davids had been there from age seven or eight, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

When I left Carlisle United for the first time at the age of 16 in 2000, I hated football.

We have to let them grow, because young players can always improve. That goes for Jack Wilshere, too.

West Ham have a great academy.

We should integrate the quality of ex-players at the highest level more in football, especially in the youth sector. That is absolutely crucial for me.

For me, the youth academy has a fundamental role in every club.

If you want to improve the football, of course you need to put attention on the academy, on the school, the facility.

Dele Alli is probably the perfect example. He played loads of games for MK Dons at a young age. He got a move and kicked on from there because he had that experience behind him.

I learned so much during my time at United. Sharing a dressing room with Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and Ryan Giggs at such a young age was an amazing experience. I didn't play as much as I would have liked, but it was a master's degree in development both as a player and a person.

Going with England and the Under-21s was great for me.