ENGLISH PREMIER League clubs will be required to include a specified number of “home-grown” players in their squads or first teams from the 2010-’11 season, in a major reverse of the league’s long-standing opposition to any such quota system.
Richard Scudamore, the Premier League CEO, announced yesterday that a “significant majority” of the league’s 20 clubs have agreed to introduce a rule similar to Uefa’s requirement for European competitions, that clubs must have eight “homegrown” players in their squads of 25.
The league will decide at its annual summer meeting whether to adopt that system, the Football League’s, which requires four “homegrown” players in a squad of 16, or to devise its own.
The Premier League was bitterly opposed to “quotas” when Uefa first introduced its rule for the 2005-’06 season, but criticism of the English league’s fielding of overseas players has grown from Uefa president, Michel Platini, and Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa.
Blatter is pushing for club teams to have a “6+5” complement of domestic to international players. In October the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, asked as one of seven challenges whether “a specified number of homegrown players” could be introduced into clubs’ sides.
Yesterday’s move was a response to that question. Scudamore rejected Blatter’s “6+5” rule, saying it would breach European laws. However, he accepted that young English players do have difficulty breaking into senior teams.
“There is a leap at 18, when clubs decide if it is worth retaining a player or to buy one ready-made. Clubs see scope for doing something to ensure we are bringing homegrown talent through.”
European law, he explained, prevents clubs selecting players on the basis of nationality, so Uefa’s definition of “homegrown” means players who have trained at a club for three years between 16 and 21.
- Guardian Service
