"Premier League Clubs agreed, from season 2010/11, to introduce the following rules governing squad numbers and Home Grown Players.
- Each Club must submit a squad by 5pm on 1st September containing no more than 17 players who do not fulfill the Home Grown Player criteria. The remainder of the squad, up to a total of 25 players, must be Home Grown.
- A Home Grown Player means a player who, irrespective of his nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday (or the end of the Season during which he turns 21).
- Changes to the squad list of 25 may be made during the period of a Transfer Window.
- U21 players are eligible over and above the limit of 25 players/squad.
- For the 2010/11 campaign Under 21 players will have been born on or after 1st January 1989."
(Any emphasis mine)
What a completely useless rule and an utter, utter waste of everyone's time.
The most obvious counter-argument to the effectiveness of this rule is in the squad submitted by Arsenal, which included only 20 players over the age of 21. Of those 20, only 7 qualified as "Home Grown", and of those 7, none were even English.
Let me say that again: The rule created to supposedly ensure young English players are given better chances resulted in Arsenal registering 20 players in their 25-man squad, none of whom were English.
(Of course, in addition to the 20, Arsenal also registered a further 56 players aged 21 or younger.)
See, the way the rule is reading, it seems a club can even get away with not registering any "Home Grown" players, nevermind English, as long as they do not register more than 17 "non-Home Grown" players.
Which is completely different from saying a club must register no less than 8 "Home Grown" players.
The other problem, of course, lies in the definition of "Home Grown". As it stands, "Home Grown" is any player, regardless of nationality, who has been registered to an English (or Welsh) club for 3 full seasons or 36 months before the end of the season in which he turns 21.
Which means, you can sign him from anywhere in the world, as long as you sign him at the start of the season in which he turns 19, and he'll still count as "Home Grown".
How exactly does encouraging managers to tempt 16, 17, 18-year-olds away from their home countries and into English club academies promote the development of young English players?
If I were the manager of an English Premiership club (and I am, in the fantasy world known as FM), I would just stockpile the best young foreign talent, hoarding them from the young age of 16, 17, or 18, and unload any English youngsters who can't make the grade amongst them.
Oh wait, isn't that what Wenger does? Do the names Fabregas, Bendtner, Clichy and Denilson ring any bells??
Just saw Chelsea's squad list, and it brings us back to the first point: Chelsea only registered 4 "Home Grown" players. Four. Plus 17 "non-Home Grown" players. Exactly the kind of abuse I thought would happen. But at least all four of them were English.
Surprisingly, even Man City were able to register 12 "Home Grown" players.
Someone needs to do a study on the number of English man-games in the 2010-11 season compared to previous years.
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