Manchester United's academy focus will remain on developing players to make it to the first-team squad, rather than using the youth system to balance the books and avoid falling foul of the Premier League's financial rules.
The final week of June has seen several clubs sell off academy graduates in order to get around breaches of the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability rules (PSR), with some trading with each other.
Academy players go down in the books as pure profit, which makes selling them attractive as it looks more profitable on a balance sheet. If you sell a player still under contract, that you paid a fee for, then the remaining amount to be amortised comes off before any profit is recorded.
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Recently, Aston Villa have done deals with Everton and Chelsea that have seen academy players moved between clubs and those transfers could see all three get away with a breach of PSR this season, with the financial year ending on Sunday (June 30).
It is a quirk of those Premier League rules that clubs are now seeing an advantage to sell academy players that they should be developing for the first team, but United's academy director Nick Cox said the aim at Old Trafford won't change.
United celebrated their 250th academy graduate to play for the first team in April when Ethan Wheatley made his debut and the club prides itself on its long history of youth development, with an academy player in every first-team matchday squad since 1937.
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Cox pointed out that selling academy players had always been part of the model at United, but insisted the focus would never move away from the aim of bringing players through to play for the club.
"As long as there have been football clubs, they have taken that approach. It is nothing new," he said of selling young players.
"Sir Alex Ferguson was a master at selling young players, usually for more than they were worth, if he could perceive they weren’t going to be part of his squad in the long term. Football clubs have always operated in that way.
"Yes, what you have discussed puts an emphasis on player development. But this club is about so much more than a business plan. We have a duty to ensure young players play in our first team.
"I think our priority will always be to nurture players to play in our first team because of all the things I have mentioned about our youth programme, which is our biggest connection to our heritage. Fans expect to see young players in our first team. It is just the way things are around here.
"For this club, I don’t have any worries or concerns about that changing trend. How that might unfold elsewhere I don’t know but what I do know is there are some incredible academies in this country that have evolved significantly.
"That is due to Premier League governance and some extra investment because of the money the Premier League generates. What I am seeing across the country, at all levels and all categories of academies, some real whole-hearted youth development that is going on in the best interests of young people.
"They are all taking the same approach that I do in terms of trying to create amazing learning environments. Academies are amongst the most inspirational learning environments you will find anywhere. That is a step change from where we might have been 20 years ago."