🟢 danielstorey85 travels to a quiet corner of Denmark to visit the club owned by a non-profit that is offering young players from Africa and elsewhere an alternative route into elite football
The B-Line train line that heads out of Copenhagen’s urban sprawl first encounters commuter-belt suburbia and then idyllic autumn woodland. Its final stop is Farum, a sleepy, lakeside town of 20,000 people. On a weekday morning, the whir of bicycles that greets rush hour gives way to countryside serenity. Hidden in various corners are a remarkable range of impressive sporting facilities for a town of this size: tennis club, squash club, a swimming and diving centre and an indoor handball arena.
The Brixtofe scandal also created an opportunity; it was the birth of the revolution. Farum BK became FC Nordsjaelland, a club that wished to move away from its previous connotations. The Football Cooperation of Nordsjælland, effectively an umbrella under which dozens of amateur clubs were housed to create an easy scouting network, was formed. Jan Laursen arrived as sporting director in 2006, inaugurated the club’s academy and began to reduce the average age of the squad.
But Vernon also saw a flaw in the system. The transfer structure only offered meagre compensation to the academies that developed players, while the clubs who signed them could scout-and-buy en masse and make a huge profit on the success stories. Where clubs did link with academies, it was usually on their terms or, increasingly, as part of multi-club ownership models.
“I think this is one of the most professional setups in Scandinavia,” Christensen says, deep breathing on the side of the pitch after a training session. “Even when I came here at 12 years old, I felt like they already had a plan specifically for me to one day prove myself at first-team level. Every training session and every match, they are looking to shape you into their style of play to make you a better player.
It is impossible to overstate how much thought goes into the development of young players for a club of this size. There is a hotel in the stadium that houses the academy players, players on trial and some of the first team. They have access to the games room and the gym facilities and sleep within view of the first-team pitch. If they need anything, they can speak to Marina Bothmann. She is described by the club as the “foster mother”, who helps teenagers from across the world settle in Farum.
That extends to the relationship between players and manager. Pedersen explains that the best compliment a player can give him is to criticise him in front of the group, because he believes that demonstrates a courage of conviction and the trust in him to take that criticism on board. It wouldn’t work for every manager to have their authority so regularly challenged, but then Pedersen is not working in normal circumstances.
The second aspect of club life is just how familial the mood is. One of the unique elements of Nordsjaelland is that literally everything is housed under one roof. The young players live in their accommodation here. The men’s and women’s teams of all ages train on the first-team pitch and are all permanently based at the stadium. Every member of off-field staff, from data analysts to coaches to media to accountants, works here.
Rather than being two separate strands of the club’s recruitment, the production of Danish, European and African players is intertwined. When Christensen was 15, he went on one of the regular trips that the Danish academy players take to play in tournaments with the African Right To Dream players. Each player is taught the importance of respecting the cultures and customs of others.
Since taking over in December 2015, FC Nordsjaelland have not finished in Denmark’s top two as they did in 2012 and 2013. They finished ninth last season. That’s hardly a surprise: a young team plus high turnover of players each summer makes sustainable improvement difficult. The broad aim is to finish as one of the top six clubs in the country this season.
What’s most interesting is the clubs those last three landed at: Ajax, Stade Rennais and Brighton. That trio have some of Europe’s most effective scouting networks but are also famous for offering ideal working conditions for potential to flourish and then be sold for a huge profit. Over the last two summers, Brighton, Ajax and Stade Rennais have sold players to the Premier League’s Big Six plus Real Madrid and Bayern Munich for around £350m.
And on each of those questions, Nordsjaelland can be proud. There are players across Europe shining because of the education they received in Farum. Players in the squad see it as a wonderful place to develop. The women’s team has received proper investment and an equality of opportunity, leading to three straight promotions to the top flight. FCN are the only club in the world to fully partner with Common Goal.
More practically, Hemmersam dreams of a team containing the full circle of club life: eight or nine young academy graduates from several countries aided by two or three 30-somethings who left this club a decade earlier and have returned to play out their final years at a place that feels like home. They pass on their experience to the younger players and the cycle begins again. The club can reflect its town, the natural home of a young family and senior citizens.
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