JIM McINALLY has launched a savage attack on the Pro Youth system in Scottish football by insisting that rejection made some young players contemplate suicide.

The former Scotland, Celtic and Dundee United midfielder has followed national team manager Gordon Strachan in completely condemning the way youths are developed.

However, the Peterhead manager has gone even further by insisting that the current set-up should be completely scrapped and the old system of S-form signings and schools football should prevail.

McInally talks from experience having worked in Celtic’s youth department for three years in the Martin O’Neill era and he says clubs’ youth departments are over-loaded with kids who will never make it.

McInally said: “I’ve come across depression. I’ve come across 16 and 17 year olds who are suicidal because their dreams have gone and they have been rejected.

“Because they are in the pro-youth system, they think they play for Celtic or Rangers. Then all of a sudden, they find out they are on the scrapheap.

“What you have is this massive saturation of boys and I’m talking through experience from my three years at Celtic.

“You knew that 99 per cent of those boys weren’t going to be footballers. Sadly, most of them don’t even come out and play at lower league level.

“Gordon can say what he wants but changing this deep-rooted problem would mean people would have to lose their jobs.

“It means people would have to sack each other. That is never going to happen. Nobody is going to admit they are wrong.

“Let’s go back to schools football. I mean these pro-youth kids aren’t allowed to play for their schools. It’s garbage. Everybody should be playing for their school.”

McInally comes from a playing era when Scotland regularly qualified for tournaments and was part of the only Scottish side to win the European Youth Championships in 1982.

He said: “What was wrong with the old way? Why do we not go back and say, ‘That way was quite good. We used to qualify for tournaments all the time’.

“I go back to the basic roots of football when you had S-forms and school games were your most important.

“When you got to 15 or 16, the club picked the best six or seven and put them on the ground staff. You were quickly integrated into the first team – training together and playing reserve football.

“I remember going to Pittodrie at 16 and playing against Joe Harper and Drew Jarvie, who sorted me right out. But the next time I went to play them I thought, ‘I need to look after myself today’.

“That doesn’t happen now. I played those games at 16. Nowadays, players don’t get in touch with football men until they are 20.

“For me, it’s about getting back to basics and letting kids play with boys’ clubs, their school teams and their pals.

“Have the clubs integrate these kids once a month for bounce games or training sessions, but just let them become footballers in their own right with practice then cherry-pick them.”