Home Grown rules

rossk26 · 5 Jul 2013 at 11:29

From playing on Football Manager I always found this to be a slight problem when trying to sign players and also sell players too!

What actually are the rules, I think I briefly read you cannot have more than 17 non-home grown players in your squad?

The way Newcastle are going in selling all their home grown players (Simpson, Perch) and potentially Williamson and Gosling going too. We have a lack of home grown players. I always thought you needed to register at least 6 or 8 HG players in your squad?

BaZ87 · 5 Jul 2013 at 11:41

I don't think you actually need 8 home grown players in your Premier League squad but if you do, it's easy to get around by putting academy players in. The only meaningful part of the rule is, as you say, that you can have a maximum of 17 non home grown players over the age of 21.

The rule is a bit of a joke tbh, I mentioned last season that only a handful of clubs filled their 25 man squad with over 21 year olds and the club's that did weren't the top sides either.

rossk26 · 5 Jul 2013 at 11:54

IIRC you don't need to register U21's either?

rossk26 · 5 Jul 2013 at 11:58

2. Fabricio Coloccini
3. Davide Santon
4. Yohan Cabaye
7. Moussa Sissoko
8. Vurnon Anita
9. Pa**** Cisse
10. Hatem Ben Arfa
11. Yoan Gouffran
13. Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa
18. Jonas Gutierrez
22. Sylvain Marveaux
24. Cheick Tiote
25. Gabriel Obertan
26. Mathieu Debuchy

Actually we currently only have 14 players which aren't HG or U21 who need to be registered, but that only leaves 3 more places for non HG or U21 players left...

Obviously this is providing the U21 rule still stands.

Purdy · 5 Jul 2013 at 14:02

Dumb rule, will protect English players and allow for the majority to continue to be trash

drunkenmaster · 5 Jul 2013 at 15:02

I wish the FA ignored England and just realised this is a football league based in England, nothing more or less. I want to be entertained by the best football possible, I don't care if there is a single English person in a single team in the league. I don't watch films that have a specific number of English actors, I just watch the best films around.

All we're doing is enforcing the massive massive over paying of transfer fees and wages for the best English players. Not entirely sure how these kinds of rules have gotten around EU style rules of discrimination as surely its against free trade/employment/discriminating against other EU countries. Who really cares about that rubbish though, Carroll at 35mil, then 15mil and now on 100k a week purely because he's one of the best(embarrassing as that is) English strikers around and a team has to have home grown players.

The rules aren't in any way helping english players get into squads, or be in teams or improve Englands chances, its just ensuring a select view have absurd bargaining power for wages because teams have no choice but to get those players in.

Its hurting England if anything, because players like Carroll, rather than playing his best, training to be the best for years and actually genuinely deserving the wages as one of the best players in the world, he can half arse it and still command massive wages, and half the england squad is players like that. Are there significantly better players than Carrick... or is he just amongst the best English midfielders who was available to them at the time(and currently).

pingwing · 5 Jul 2013 at 20:20

Homegrown for the prem has nothing to do with nationality, 3 years at a club before they turn 21 makes them "trained in club" and 3 years with any club in England (the english league) makes them trained in nation.

So for us Schneiderlin counts as homegrown in club for us because we bought him over when he was 18 and has stuck it out.

Anyway the rule in principle is sound in that it is trying to encourage clubs to train their own players/use talent trained in nation to get access to bigger squads, only down side is absolute dross ends up over paid and over valued because they come in the home grown rules. Worse still there is limited scope for the current rule as there is no requirement for home grown players in the squad (as you in theory only need one to name a full first team and bench). It would be more effective if we a. asked for more in the first team/match day squads (or just said 10/15 in the 25 squad) or b. banned transfers of players under 18 (like Brazil and a few other countries) to ensure kids aren't hoovered up in the hope they get round the rule later.

Either way it's a good idea just badly implemented and abused by clubs who can't be bothered with the spirit of the rules.

Oh and u21's don't have to be registered, good idea to get u21's prem game time....

HangTime · 6 Jul 2013 at 11:42

pingwing said:
abused by clubs who can't be bothered with the spirit of the rules.

A bit harsh as from what I can tell very few clubs have actually changed their strategy in order to 'abuse' the rules. Take Arsenal for example, they have been signing young foreign players since long before the rules came into force (e.g. Fabregas). When the rule was introduced most people who took the time to research it will have concluded that it would make virtually no difference to English clubs and thus the there was never really any spirit of the rules to follow in the first place. I think part of the problem is that some people misinterpreted 'homegrown' and just assumed it was about trying to force clubs to field players of local nationality whereas in reality it is more about players who have developed in that nation irrespective of where they were born.

In summation if the rule isn't achieving it's objectives (whatever they may be) I think that is simply down to the rules not being defined correctly, rather than clubs actively coming up with ways to evade them.

Personally I think 'abuse' of rules is much more likely to relate to FFP i.e. some ridiculous £999999999999999999 sponsorship deals or similar to artificially boost revenue at clubs like Man City etc.