Not saying I agree with the rules Scottswan, but that's what they are. In sport these days, it seems where you are born is becoming les and less relavent as you say. Some national sides end up with very few home born players in the team. Just watching the Cricket ODI, the England team is a case in point. Lots of South Africans playing for 'us'. I don't think it will be a huge problem for teams like Swansea and Cardiff as we'll always have a few players that have come through the ranks and other English / Welsh born and developed players, though we do have a fair percentage of Scots in the side. There are very few teams that wouldn't have 8 players that have spent more than 36 months at an FA / FAW affiliated club.
Yeah I can't see it being a huge problem for us, but I still think it's a bit cheeky to tell you where your players have to be from. Granted, you SHOULD be able to include 8 in your squad, but given how expensive British players have become, is it any surprise people shop on the continent? You will always be able to pick up cheap, average British players but getting ones that will raise the bar at a club are in a different financial league... case in point Joey Barton? No transfer fee but a 4 year contract and god knows how much he's earning a week, that's out of our price range... in fact, it's out of anyones price range unless you've got a sugar daddy. Where do the sugar daddies come from? Oh... yeah.. not the UK. I remember... I'd say a much bigger problem for the modern game is money being thrown around and unsustainable spending. Get this in check and the youth systems will flourish. If you don't, we'll just see the continued dominance of a select few and the demise of many.
What I don't get is how the EU is letting this go, surely the laws on employment is being breached here, if a player is from the EU they can ply their trade anywhere that wants them, meaning that the 8 people who went through the British system rule is contrary to eu laws ? Just my thoughts on it
Combine that with the bosman and it becomes difficult to make ends meet. We've suffered from it in the last couple of seasons with Ledley and Mathews. There's no incentive to bring on youngsters when they can walk away for nothing (or a small amount of compo). No wonder teams like Plymouth are struggling.
It's weird isn't it? It seems what club you play for defines your value more than anything. A promising youngster at the Swans is worth a million, but a promising youngster at Southampton is worth 12mil. How does that work?!
Think it was because we were more desperate than them, the same could be said of ramsey he was worth a damn sight more than £5m, maybe up to £15m or so but Cardiff were desperate .
That will all change in due course, particularly as we develop the club up another level, matter of fact I think those days of giving a player away for a 1 or two Million are pretty much over, not including deadwood here of course, but I'm sure Jenkins can see that we develop players the right way, and we should be now putting the full and correct price tag on them, at the end of the day we are not a cash strapped club with massive debts, so it's important that we start to put high values on our players!................. please log in to view this image
