New rules proposed to promote ‘home grown’ players would drastically alter the make up of some sides
Hot on the heels of the handwringing over the state of English football after their mass exodus from European competition last week, the FA have published another plan to try and get more of their own players into the league.
The Premier League is dominated by players from overseas (215 of the 601 registered players in the league are English) and the numbers at the very top clubs continues to shrink, and the FA have decided to try and take steps to address it.
The gist of the rules the FA want to bring in are as follows:
Players, regardless of nationality, will have to be with any affiliated club from age 15 to qualify as ‘home-grown’
The number of non-home grown players in each 25-man squad is to be reduced from 17 to 13
At least two home-grown players must be club trained, meaning they were at the club they are with now from the age of 15
The rules, to be phased in from 2016 if accepted, aren’t that draconian as the average ‘home grown’ number per squad in the league right now is 9.4 but five clubs would be in a bit of bother with their current squads.
Sky have listed the problems that Manchester City, Spurs, Arsenal, Newcastle and Chelsea.
For City, they currently have six too many non home grown, and that includes players who are classified as such under current rules, Gael Clichy and Dedryck Boyata. The others are Sergio Aguero, Wilfried Bony, Willy Caballero, Martin Demichelis, Edin Dzeko, Fernando, Fernandinho, Stevan Jovetic, Aleksandar Kolarov, Vincent Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala, Samir Nasri, Jesus Navas, Bacary Sagna, David Silva, Yaya Toure and Pablo Zabaleta.
City would have to ditch six of these under the new rules.
Spurs have the current maximum of 17 non home gown so four of these players would have to go. Emmanuel Adebayor, Etienne Capoue, Cristian Ceballos, Nacer Chadli, Vlad Chiriches, Moussa Dembele, Christian Eriksen, Federico Fazio, Brad Friedel, Younes Kaboul, Erik Lamela, Hugo Lloris, Paulinho, Roberto Soldado, Benjamin Stambouli, Jan Vertonghen and Michel Vorm.
Arsenal have a similar problem. Wojciech Szczęsny, Francis Coquelin and Damian Martinez would no longer be deemed home grown while they also have 14 non home grown players in their squad; Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla, Mathieu Debuchy, Abou Diaby, Mathieu Flamini, Gabriel, Olivier Giroud, Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker, Nacho Monreal, David Ospina, Mesut Ozil, Tomas Rosicky and Alexis Sanchez.
Four of the above would have to leave.
Chelsea need to ditch three of the following; Cesar Azpilicueta, Petr Cech, Diego Costa, Thibaut Courtois, Juan Cuadrado, Didier Drogba, Eden Hazard, Branislav Ivanovic, Filipe Luis, Nemanja Matic, John Obi Mikel, Oscar, Ramires, Loic Remy and Willian plus now non qualified home grown Cesc Fabregas.
And Newcastle have to lose three of these; Mehdi Abeid, Vurnon Anita, Remy Cabella, Papiss Cisse, Fabricio Coloccini, Siem De Jong, Facundo Ferreyra, Yoan Gouffran, Jonas Gutierrez, Massadio Haidara, Daryl Janmaat, Gabriel Obertan, Emmanuel Riviere, Moussa Sissoko and Cheik Tiote plus now non home-grown Tim Krul.
Time will tell if the proposals are accepted but it will lead to some shake ups in squad selections and transfers in the coming years if they do.
