AAU basketball has been there for a while. They’re all about ranking the 12 year olds. I assume that European football is like that. @thats2 would know better than I, but I do now that the future stars are often identified well before puberty and pulled into academies to train.
Venezuela and DR baseball has to be that way as well but the knowledge is probably held quite close to the vest by the various MLB teams and their academies.
Btw a documentary about Venezuela baseball academies would be super fascinating. The handlers, the poverty, the corrupt government, the crime and danger, the MLB teams trying to mitigate it, etc.
Yeah the football clubs, at least in Europe, are legitimate academies. Just like a sports-centered private school really, that just happens to be connected to an actual professional team.
I suspect the baseball versions are VERY different. They don’t really care at all about educating the kids. The European ones probably don’t really care that much either, but they’re under much more pressure to look like they do. I’d definitely watch a doc about the baseball academies though.