Football FanCast columnist Kris Wilcox discusses the FA's new ‘home grown' quota and examines the potential impact on the English game
The idea of a home grown quota has been in the offing for a while, around all three of the major football organisations - the FA, Fifa and Uefa. It appears that, finally, we have taken it upon ourselves to impose a form of legislation, before Fifa or Uefa intervened and tried to do it for us. The legislation is, of course, pretty lenient in terms of foreign players. People like Cesc Fabregas, Federico Macheda and even Gaël Kakuta will count as home grown players in the legislation as they have been, or will have been, at their respective clubs for at least three seasons between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. We can therefore be perfectly certain that, if anything, the legislation will anger Uefa and Fifa as it will simply encourage more player poaching from abroad, of younger and younger players.
The legislation does, however, favour English players as it does not specify that players must be trained at their current club but at any English or Welsh (but not Scottish) club. Therefore someone like Glen Johnson, who Liverpool purchased for £17 million this summer, now looks like a bit of a bargain as he can count as one of Liverpool's eight home-grown players. We can therefore draw another conclusion, if English players weren't overpriced already, in a league which has 59.2% of players from abroad, they are going to be even more so now. In addition we can expect to see a hefty price rise in any foreign players trained up by English clubs as they will also count as one of the precious home grown players. It's the big four teams that, at this moment in time, have been training up such players, so expect this legislation to favour them when players such as Nabil El Zhar aren't deemed good enough for the Liverpool squad.
The most interesting part of the legislation, however, is the limited squad size of 25 in addition to any under 21's. The first point to this is that we may well see more Ryan Babel's, players signed for a decent fee whilst counting as an under 21, and therefore not yet required to be registered as one of the seventeen non-home grown players. If they are successful the likelihood is they will make it into the next set of 25 players, if they are not then they will probably follow a path like West Ham's Savio, being shipped back to Europe after less than twelve months. That's the first part, the most interesting and important part is the limiting of squad size. On the face of it, it looks like the squads could reach well over 35, or 40 players, as most clubs have lots of under 21's. However, the likelihood is that many of these players will have to be counted within the eight home-grown players. We will therefore see much smaller squad sizes, built up of younger players, than we have ever seen before.
So how will this affect the majority of clubs? For most upper to mid table sides it's unlikely to make that bigger difference. Sides like Everton and Aston Villa barely have squads of above 20 players anyway and possess enough young home grown players anyway not to be worried in the slightest. A similar thing can be said of the majority of mid table and relegation battling sides that possess a good youth system, have a small squad or would welcome the opportunity to cut some of the older foreign players out of the side. The most interesting case studies for this ruling are therefore the big four sides. Out of the big four sides it is fair to say that Manchester United are the best equipped, as they have no fewer than ten English players in their current squad, though its notable that Owen Hargreaves - who, despite being English, did not train here - would not count. They also have plenty of players of the like of Fabio, Rafael and Johnny Evans who will count as home grown. However, whilst the vast majority of their squad is eligible for being home grown, they will be hit by the twenty five limit in the next few seasons so it would be surprising if players like Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes extended their United careers much longer.
The next best equipped currently, and arguably the best equipped for the future, is Arsenal. Whilst a quick look at the current squad will point out only three English players, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs, they will all surely play a great role in Arsenal's future. The fact Arsenal also have the current youth FA cup and youth championship winning squad also points to a bright future with this ruling. The general age of the squad is also impressive, regularly averaging less than 23 for outfield players with many like Bendtner, Song, Djourou, Ramsey, Denilson, Fabregas etc... all likely to classify as home-grown. Overall this means that Arsenal are one of the few top clubs that won't have to worry about getting rid of any players due to the fact that so much of their squad won't even need to be counted within the twenty-five. Chelsea also look like the legislation should make little difference to their current squad, the signings of Ross Turnbull and Daniel Sturridge now looking particularly prudent. Chelsea also don't possess the biggest squad in the world so will probably move up a few of their solid youth set up into the first team squad, if they don't choose to make a few signings instead.
The club this will most affect in the short term is Liverpool. Liverpool possesses an effective youth set up and should, in the long term, produce players that can be valuable assets to their squads. However, Liverpool, out of what would currently be considered their most important twenty five players, have only six that would be acceptable youth players. Three of these, Insua, El Zhar and Plessis can hardly be expected to make much impact on the first team. Luckily for Liverpool it looks like it can easily be remedied by getting rid of players that make little impact such as Voronin, Degen and Lucas, however, getting home grown replacements will not be cheap. It might also be worth a mention of Manchester City, but such will be the turnaround of their squad between now and next summer it's probably best to assume Mark Hughes will simply concentrate on buying up a few young English players.
We therefore find ourselves at an interesting stage in English football. Whilst I think I've shown that the short term impact might only create big changes at Liverpool it's likely that the long term impact will be decided by not only who can poach the best players from abroad, or indeed who has the best youth set up but, ultimately, by who can open their chequebooks and sign home grown players of proven talent.
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