Home Grown Players Quota

With the new rules regarding the Quota of Homegrown players that are allowed in the Prem. starting this season one of the main tasks of Roy Hodgson will be to see that we are able to comply with this rule and still field a competitive team. Benitez has done him no favours in this respect leaving us woefully short of players in our first team who meet this new requirement.

OK so what is the rule?

"England's Premier League clubs have agreed new rules on the number of "home-grown" players in their squads.

From next season, each club will, at the end of every transfer window, have to name at least eight "home-grown" players in a squad of 25.

To qualify as home grown, a player will have had to be registered for at least three seasons at an English or Welsh club between the ages of 16 and 21.

In addition, clubs have been warned to adhere to new financial rules.

In agreeing to a quota on "home-grown" players from the beginning of the 2010-11 season, Premier League clubs have been guided by Uefa's interest in the development of young players.


"It will encourage youth development and the promotion of young players," said Premier League chief Richard Scudamore. "It's a rule which we think will give clubs an extra incentive to develop players, and to make a better return from their investment in youth.

"Make, rather than buy, is our intention."

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"I am pleased the Premier League intend to impose tough sanctions on clubs that take big financial risks that could threaten their future. Clubs must be sustainable for the long-term
According to a recent poll from the Professional Football Players' Observatory, English clubs employ the highest proportion of expatriate players, with 59.2% coming from abroad. "

Liverpool have the highest percentage in Europe of expatriate players within their squad, measuring 90%.

Out of a first team squad of 25 players that must be registered with the Prem ( Benitez registered over 50 as our 1st team squad last season) at least 8 of them must meet this new requirement.

Well Roy your first job is not simply buying the right players that we need to revamp our squad. It will be a little more complicated than that, given the fact you have to sell to buy and combined with the fact we have the least home grown players out of all the Prem you have to buy players will meet this new rule.

So Benitez didn't know he was leaving us in this mess you might ask?

Well with the date of the first of September when this new rule will apply rapidly approaching and given Roy's comments that he doesn't beleive some of the under 20 players are ready yet for the first team. Perhaps it is a good moment to look at how this is likely to effect his team buliding plans.

I think firstly we can forget immediately the host of foreign stars that are being linked with a possible move to Liverpool as it just doesn not make any sense.

Roy has been left in the unenviable postion by Benitez of having only 5 players who qualify as home grown under the new rule. This would mean he could only register a sqad of 20 players for the new season with no additions possble until the next transfer window. With the exception of free agents who meet the rule ( read the players left over after the window has closed that no one else wants) So I think that is safe to say that any newcomers will have to meet the home grown rule before even being considered as a possible transfer target.

Next as he has to trim the massive squad inherited from Benitez as we are not in the position financially to pay for players to sit in a suit in the stand.

But not only that he has to look at the fitness of players as with only 25 maximum possible first team players registered you cannot afford to have any passengers. Aquliani really does need to prove his fitness before Roy could include him in his squad as again under this new rule you just a cannot afford to waste a squad place on someone who may spend half the season deciding if he is fit or not.

From the financial point of view this new rule could be good news for us as it gives the teams without unlimited funds to spend on having 3 players in every position a chance to compete on a more even footing.

Of course the reasoning behind this rule is to promote more english born players and stop the top clubs from stockpiling the worlds best youngsters but there are going to be a number of other effects that were not thought of when this rule was drawn up. It will be very interesting to see just what effect this rule does have in it's first season. Dramatic is my guess.