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Cambridge have pulled out of the Football League Youth Alliance after failing to field sides for their last two matches.
Cambridge have lost two Youth Team managers since the summer, and a string have players have left after their announcement that their Centre of Excellence was to be scrapped - leading to the postponement of their last two matches at short notice.
Vice Chairman John Howard told the official Cambridge site: "Some Football League clubs have been very quick to take advantage of our situation, and we have lost both staff and players over recent weeks to an extent that it is now proving impossible to put out a team each Saturday.
"We understand the difficult position our lads have faced, and in particular we are enormously proud of the boys who have stayed loyal to the club, who want to play for Cambridge United and who are worst affected by this situation," he added.
"We also understand the Football League's desire - which we share - to preserve the integrity of the youth competition, which will not be helped by our withdrawal mid-season. However, if we can't reliably fulfil our fixtures it seems to us it is less damaging to the competition in the long run to deal with the problem immediately."
As always with youth matters, the boys themselves were the first to be told of the decision. "The interests of our boys always comes first for the club. We hope that some of the lads will be invited to join the first team squad, and we will do everything we can to ensure that all the other boys find alternative teams to take over their scholarships and complete their football training and education."
