League Focus: Why The FA’s Latest Proposals Won’t Improve English Football
In a week of international action which has seen Roy Hodgson call up Andros Townsend and receive widespread criticism for doing so, while Dominic Solanke is making up the numbers with the first team (though only because he had just won England’s young player of the year award), it is a more poignant time than ever for the FA’s Greg Dyke to announce new attempts to increase the volume of English players seeing action at the top of the game. Having called the numbers of English players featuring in the Champions League “pathetic”, he clearly feels the need for improvement, though questions will rightly be raised as to whether the proposed plans will have the desired effect.
The change in the ruling will make it a requirement that each club name 12 ‘home-grown’ players in their squad (up from 8), with the requirements to be considered ‘home-grown’ changing from being with a club from the age of 18 to 15. Additionally, 2 home-grown players must be ‘club-trained’ and it will be made even more difficult for non-EU players to gain the necessary paperwork to play in England.
On first glance there doesn’t look to be much wrong with the proposals. Aside from the glaring fact that it further isolates and slims the chances of the many talented players from poorer non-EU countries realising their dream of playing in the Premier League, it does indeed look like the result will be more playing time for young English players, with the hope that that will directly impact on the volume and quality of players available to the national team. The logic behind these decisions is all too simplistic, though.
There is indeed a need for English players to gain more game time and thus greater experience, as at present they are simply given significantly less than others. English players account for just 35.1% of the minutes played in the Premier League this season, compared to 57.6% by Spanish players in La Liga, 55.8% by French players in Ligue 1, 48.0% by Germans in the Bundesliga and 43.1%by Italians in Serie A. They are also behind the Russian, Dutch and Turkish leagues.
Similarly, when it comes to goals scored in each league, England lag behind, with 33.7% of Premier League goals this season netted by Englishmen. Compare this to 49.6% in France, 42.1% in Germany, 41.8% in Spain (in spite of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo dominating the scoring charts) and 38.2% in Italy, and the problems are yet more pronounced. Foreign players are undoubtedly improving the standard of the Premier League, and without that added quality, there would have been no record-breaking television deal last month. The money did little to dissuade those who maintain that the English top tier is not in fact ‘the best league in the world’, while recent results in European competition certainly settled any remaining debate.
And the fact that the new ruling will make English (home-grown) players even more valuable (to English clubs), and that means that even fewer will take the plunge and go abroad. The only English players currently plying their trade abroad in any of Europe’s top 5 leagues are Ashley Cole and Micah Richards, who have just 15 league starts between them since moving to Roma and Fiorentina, while Josh McEachran is the only other in any of the aforementioned leagues (playing on loan at Vitesse). They won’t be joined by many others after the new rules come in.
Transfer fees and wages for the best English players will sky rocket when every Premier League team requires 12 home-grown players. There will thus be no reason for foreign clubs to look to English players when they can turn to cheaper alternatives from other nations and no reason for English players to look abroad where prospective wages are lower. None will benefit from honing their skills and developing in a different environment. Plenty of Spaniards (see Cesc Fabregas, for example), Frenchmen (see Paul Pogba), Italians (see Marco Verratti) and others have become the player they are by moving abroad, but very few Englishmen do it and even fewer clubs will be interested when there is such vast demand for Englishmen in their own country.
In Turkey a similar rule has been in force for a number of years (whilst varying in stringency), currently demanding that every Super Lig team have at least 6 Turkish players on the pitch at any one time. The result has been a driving up in price of those eligible to play for the Turkish national team, who the bigger, more financially powerful clubs have a monopoly over. Turkish players have made up 53.7% of the Super Lig minutes played this season, but the national team continues to flounder.
A recent drop in the latest FIFA rankings has seen them move to 56th in the world, behind the likes of Cape Verde Islands (38th), Northern Island (43rd), Guinea (44th) and Gabon (54th). They were ranked 5th in the world only 10 years ago, and look very unlikely to make Euro 2016 after defeat to Iceland and a draw with Latvia. Clearly the domestic rulings haven’t helped matters, and the powers that be have recognised that, loosening the demands for next season.
With the greatest of respect to the Turkish Super Lig, the Premier League – with its superior finances and backing – should provide a better platform for youngsters to develop, but the principles remain the same, and they should follow suit.
All the while, the free movement between nations that the EU allows means there is no reducing the number of Europeans joining the Premier League, so Dyke’s plans are essentially punishing non-EU players by making the process by which they earn a work permit more stringent. The best players will still make it by appeal if they are considered to be improving the league sufficiently, which they undoubtedly will and which the league needs given the worldwide audience it has to satisfy to earn another multi-billion pound deal. Furthermore, fewer foreign players would reduce the quality of the English teams, giving those English players less to learn from. It is a cycle that will continue with these new regulations brought in.
Non-EU players are so far from the problem. The problem is at home, where too little of that vast income from the television deal will be pumped into training facilities and grass roots football, which is being given less funding by the year. The new regulations will make going abroad even less appealing and even less likely, and that will mean English players continue to be restricted in their development. Greg Dyke’s plans are ambitious, but don’t expect a huge improvement from the Three Lions any time soon.
Do you think the FA’s proposals will improve the England national team? Let us know in the comments below
