Football today looks very different from what it was in the last century. It’s not just the 90 minutes on the pitch anymore. The game now lives online too — through esports like FIFA, or football-themed slots at online casinos that offer bonuses players can use in these games. All of this filters back into how we view the sport itself. And with globalisation spreading to every part of football, farm clubs have naturally found themselves caught up in this shift.

Farm clubs have long been central to football’s growth, serving as places where young players could develop under less pressure before stepping up to senior teams. Traditionally, they offered match practice and gradual integration into the professional game, often balancing reserve duty with limited first-team minutes. In recent years, though, their role has shifted. Mid-table sides in Spain or Portugal, for instance, sometimes operate as feeder teams for giants like Aston Villa or Manchester City. This evolution shows how farm clubs have moved beyond being simple training grounds, becoming key players in a wider football network with far more complex goals.

Traditional Farm Clubs and Their Limitations
A farm club in the traditional sense was a reserve team that belonged to the same club structure as the main squad. Think of Barcelona Atletic (formerly Barcelona B), Bayern Munich II or Jong Ajax.

These are second teams used primarily for the purpose of giving the young academy players exposure to professional or semi-professional football. Typically, the senior club would assign some of their most promising young players to these teams. Around the age of 23, clubs would decide whether a footballer was worth promoting to the main squad or whether it is time to pay their farewells and focus on the development of a new batch of players.

One significant limitation is that the reserves can never reach the first-division level as leagues do not allow teams coming from the same club structure competing against one another. In 2010/10, Barcelona Athletic finished third in Segunda Division but could not compete in the promotion play-offs for this exact reason.

Thus, traditional reserve teams were always doomed to playing second-tier football at best. In addition to the general level of competition, this also sets limitations like the ability to attract players from outside the club, salary caps and more. Some of these limitations have been eliminated by the new way big clubs set their farm clubs now.

Modern Shifts: Business, Branding, and Globalisation
The rise of football as a global business in recent decades has meant that clubs have approached their internal structuring from a more financial point of view. One example is the Red Bull group with clubs in Germany, Austria and Brazil that uses these clubs to move players across levels based on their potential and resale value.

Aston Villa and the V Sports Network
Aston Villa are part of the V Sports holding, which has been quietly building a multi-club model of its own. Through V Sports, Villa hold stakes in Real Unión (Spain) and Vitória SC (Portugal), while also running formal partnerships with ZED FC in Egypt and Vissel Kobe in Japan. These aren’t just token connections: Real Unión has already taken Villa academy lads like Tommi O’Reilly and Josh Feeney on loan to get senior minutes in Spain, while Vitória SC offers a bridge into top-flight Portuguese football.

The links go beyond player loans. ZED FC has become a pipeline for North African talent – Villa secured young prospect Omar Khedr this way – while the Vissel Kobe partnership gives Villa access to Japan’s player market and allows both clubs to swap training methods and coaching ideas. In effect, these clubs work as Villa’s farm system: they provide match experience, broaden scouting reach and act as testing grounds for development projects that would be harder to run under the week-to-week Premier League spotlight.

Manchester City and the Multi-Club Blueprint
City Football Group have taken a similar path, connecting Manchester City with Girona in Spain and a string of clubs across the Americas and Australia. The benefit of this spread is that affiliated clubs compete in different leagues, meaning they’re not confined to lower tiers but can develop players in genuinely competitive environments. Girona’s role as a springboard has already produced results – Savinho being the standout example of a player moving through the system before joining City. Beyond player movement, these clubs are used for tactical trials, coaching development and sports-science projects, with shared data and insights flowing back into the wider network.