Calum Ferguson achieved what thousands of young footballers dream of when he played for his boyhood club, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, in the Scottish Premiership.

Yet the 31-year-old looks back on his career as proof of a difficult truth about youth development in Scotland.

Ferguson graduated from Caley Thistle’s academy at 18 but played just two games for the first team before moving to lower league clubs and then to Canada and New Zealand to try to get top-flight football.

Now a development officer with Alba Football Alliance, he believes Scottish football continues to sell young players and their families the promise of a pathway from the academies to the first team, which for most will never be a reality.

“Parents believe their boy, or their girl, will get to the first team – that they will be a star in football,” he told BBC Scotland’s Eorpa programme.

“That is not the truth at all.

“You just fall away from the game and your life changes overnight.”

His comments come as Scottish football wrestles with a growing concern over the number of homegrown players who are making it to the top of the game.

In September, all 42 SPFL clubs gathered in St Andrews for a summit to discuss why so few young Scottish players are making the grade at elite level.

Data presented to the clubs showed that Scottish players under the age of 21 made up just 4.1% of minutes played in the Scottish Premiership.

By comparison, in the Danish Superliga, a league of the same size, the figure was 15.1%.

In the first round of fixtures in the Scottish Premiership this season, 28% of the starters were born in Scotland.

A stark contrast to similar sized Norway, where homegrown players made up 72% of the starting 11s on their opening weekend.

This is because Norway has strict quotas.

Its league rules state that a club’s full squad must include 16 homegrown players and a matchday squad can have a maximum of nine foreign players.

Nicklas Fuglestad is 20, and regularly plays for Viking FK, based in the Norwegian city of Stavanger. He believes quotas are good for the game.

“Everyone I know is very happy with how the Norwegian football league operates,” he says.

“It makes it a bit easier for a young player to move up from the academy and make the step into A-league football.”

Viking turned their focus to developing academy talent nearly a decade ago, after they were relegated to the second division.

After finishing champions last year, they have made it to the league stage of the Champions League, where they recently started eight Norwegians in their line-up, four of whom had been in their academy.

Another three from their academy came off the bench.

With both Viking FK and Bodø/Glimt in Europe’s top competition this year, it could be said that Norway is going through a golden generation.

Their national team reached the World Cup quarter final – and that wasn’t just down to man mountain Erling Haaland.

However, there’s more to Norway’s success than quotas, according to Håkon Grøttland, head of player development at the Norwegian Football Federation.

He says two big changes over the past 25 years have made a huge difference – the increase in the use of artificial pitches, and more resources being put into coaching and talent development.

Grøttland says artificial pitches allowed football to develop from a summer game to a year-round sport, turning Norway into a proper football nation.

Between 2016 and 2025 alone, 539 such pitches were built, with another 586 redeveloped.

Nearly all are open and free to use, so long as official games aren’t taking place.

Grøttland says changes to player development have provided the second boost to the country’s game.

“In the period 2010 to 2020 we used a lot of resources, hired a lot of talent coaches, and built some talent systems in Norway, where I think it’s quite unique because it’s a system that link grassroots football and top club football together,” he says.

That talent system is Landslagskollen – or the National Team School (NTS) – that was established in 2013, following the country’s failure to qualify for Euro 2012.

It’s neither an academy nor a centralised school, but a national development structure connecting grassroots clubs, districts, top clubs and the federation.

Eleven of the 15 players who played in Norway’s 2-1 win over Brazil in the round of 16 at this year’s World Cup were part of the NTS pathway from under-15 or under-16s.

Despite a disappointing group campaign, a return to the World Cup after decades in the desert was a significant achievement for the Scotland national team.

The question now is whether the next generation can be developed.

The Tartan Army will not want to wait another 28 years.

At the meeting in St Andrews in September, the Scottish FA proposed quotas, as well as financial incentives, in an attempt to increase game time for young Scottish players.

The governing body put forward three suggestions:

Two votes were to take place on the proposals.

The first, on the issue of Scottish Cup rule adoption, should have happened in October at the SFA’s AGM, but did not take place.

The SFA now says it is expected to happen in mid-December.

The second vote is due to take place at the SPFL’s annual meeting this month.

Adoption of the league and premier sports cup recommendations require 11 out of 12 top flight clubs to vote in favour – a high bar.

St Mirren manager Craig McLeish told the BBC he did not believe the proposals went far enough – although he said he didn’t think they would get voted through if they were more extreme.

“It’s probably a little bit unfortunate, the governance in this country, that we can’t just be told by one power, look this is what’s happening,” the 36-year-old said.

The young manager came into his role on an interim basis in March, before landing a permanent contract in the summer.

By the time BBC Eòrpa interviewed him in September, he’d given out six debuts to homegrown players.

Having worked in academy football for years, he says he could not sit where he is now and not give youngsters opportunities if they are ready.

A common argument against playing young players is the jeopardy that comes with managing in the Scottish Premiership.

Managers don’t want to risk untried young players when they know that a handful of defeats could cost them their job.

“Yeah, you’ve got a longer term contract but you know that can be short-lived,” Craig says.

“It’s results based and I’m totally fine with that. I don’t fear the negative outcome that can come.

“I trust them,” he says.

In recent years, top players such as Andrew Robertson, John McGinn, and Ryan Christie, have all had a significant grounding in the Scottish Premiership before moving on to greater things.

And regardless of talent coaches or quotas for homegrown players, the Scottish top flight can be extremely entertaining.

That much was clear last season, when fans were treated to the most enticing title race in years.

It is now up to the clubs to decide whether they want their league to be more Scottish.

All will become clear once the votes on the SFA’s proposals take place.

Although the delay would suggest things are not going as the governing body would have liked.