EFL club chairman warns about new football trend that’s his latest ‘enemy’

Peterborough United chairman Darragh MacAnthony has admitted that footballers’ dads have become his new enemy.

MacAnthony and Posh have become known for their impressive ability to find and develop young stars in the game.

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So, the owner has had to deal with a lot of growing players as well as their agents and parents along the way.

It makes him somewhat of an expert at how to find rising talents and where best to find them across the country.

And that led to a football-loving dad messaging in to talkSPORT’s White and Jordan to ask the Peterborough chief for some tips.

After being asked how best to go about getting a youngster into an academy, MacAnthony said: “We have scouts at all levels of games.

“Usually there are development centres nearby, parents need to find development centres for a club.

“Peterborough have development centres hundreds of miles from Peterborough, we have five of them, having players in camps, seeing the talent they are and that potentially leads to scholarships.

“Never stop knocking on the door if you want your kid to get into a good academy, but don’t push it over the top.

“Your kid’s still young, there’s plenty of time.”

A ‘really difficult’ new enemy

talkSPORT host Max Scott then asked about the rising influence of agents in football and whether that has rubbed off onto some players’ parents at youth level.

And Posh owner MacAnthony strongly admitted that it had, revealing that his new ‘enemy’ in the game is players’ dads.

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“I’ll tell you, my biggest enemy used to be agents,” he began.

“I deal with all the agents, some good, some bad, some brilliant, and some brilliant people recently that are honest and direct.

“But the one that I’ve noticed is creeping in is you’re dealing with more dads and I’m not sure I love that.

“I just think you need a professional…dads are too close.”

MacAnthony continued: “If my son was an athlete, I’d want an expert handling his career and I wouldn’t want to get in the way.

“It would cause issues between me and my son and I don’t want anything to come in between me and my son.

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“But the amount of dads I’m now speaking to is really difficult.

“They’re telling me how wonderful their kid is, we all think our kids are wonderful, but I tell people the truth about my kids, yes they’re wonderful up to a point, but they’re a pain in the neck to another.

“They’re not perfect…a lot of these players’ dads think they’re perfect and they get DMac here who tells them the truth and that’s probably why I don’t sign a couple of them.

“But you’ve always got to be honest, right?”