The history of Athletic Club Bilbao’s Cantera policy and how they’re thriving off local talent.
Today, most football clubs spend fortunes on scouts to travel around the world to find young talent to invest in. At Athletic Club Bilbao, they look no further than home.
In this new money era of football, Bilbao stand out as different and original. The club is invested in the Basque region and are one of the three teams that have never been relegated. They’ve been able to have success in their long history, but most fans of the sport don’t know the clubs limitations on the players they can sign.
The club is known for its ‘Cantera’ policy. Unlike Barcelona’s La Masia, where they can sign youth from all over the world, Athletic’s policy limits them to only bring in Basque youth players through the ranks, as well as recruit top Basque players from other clubs. The club can only sign professional players native to or trained in football in the greater Basque Country, including Biscay, Gipuzkoa, Álava and Navarre in Spain. This also extends to Labourd, Soule and Lower Navarre in France.
Athletic has played exclusively with players meeting the Cantera policy criteria and has been one of the most successful teams of La Liga. Their first every trophy was the Copa del Rey in 1903 when they defeated Barcelona in the final. Bilbao continued on and off success throughout the 70’s and 80’s but haven’t had much success in modern times. Some fans and critics blame the Cantera policy but Basque people will tell you that it’s morally wrong.
You won’t see “Blockbuster” deals from Athletic but the club is very proud that they work in a small market. Club president, Josu Urrutia, has a lot of pride in the club’s Cantera policy which has been followed from the time the club was founded in 1898.
For awhile, most clubs in Spain could only have three foreign players in their squad, meaning that at least eight local players had to play in every game. However, clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona circumvented these rules by playing dual citizens such as Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskás, José Santamaria and Ladislao Kubala.
Like international teams, the club has used the “grandparent rule”, allowing the recruitment of some players of Basque descent. This enabled the Barcelona-born Armando Merodio to play for the club.
Athletic’s unique philosophy has brought in and developed players like Iñaki Williams, Iker Muniain, and Aritz Aduriz just to name a few.
Athletic Club Bilbao currently sit at 7th place in La Liga, tied on points with Villarreal and their main rivals are Real Sociedad, whom they play in the Basque derby, and Real Madrid, due to sport and political rivalry.
