The FA are trying to reduce the number of foreign players below the very best to give English players a chance. They can do nothing about EU players, so this is all they can do. Dyche says they want to stop teams turning up with videos showing how brilliant player X is (as we did with Tadanari Lee), so the rules are simple. I suspect that includes players like Mayuka playing for EU clubs...the answer remains no.
The FA should increase the quota of home-grown player, I think it's the only way to force clubs to give their young player a chance. It would also make the league more competitive and give further incentive to clubs to develop youngsters.
But the Premier League don't want a competitive league. They would lose money if the City's and Chelsea's dropped out of the top 4 and were replaced by the likes of Swansea or Stoke.
They can't make a rule against EU players because it would probably violate the freedom of movement of workers in the EU charter, no? But this is a stupid rule. It's disguised as an attempt to improve English football but it's really just serving the needs of the big clubs once again. The League teams don't have crazy scouting networks scouring South America for the most brilliant U-18's. And how many of those U18 players would sign for them if they could sign for Man U or Chelsea anyway? For any cash-strapped team, the best investment is always (if you have the capital) to develop a decent academy and use that as a cheap source of quality talent. And the fans identify better with those players so they bring in revenue well beyond their performance on the pitch. They can also be sold for massive amounts of cash. That's basically what Southampton has done. Except that we were able to get our Academy built and get into EPPP just in time. There's much less incentive or ability to develop players when the big clubs can simply take them from you for a nominal fee whenever they wish. The type of non-EU players that Championship sides sign are guys like Tim Ream. Decent enough players already at/near peak who could help a Championship side, perhaps even make a go of it in PL but are never going to be superstars. They provide decent service for their Championship clubs-- possibly so good those clubs could get into PL and maybe even defeat a big club now again. The big clubs can't have that. So why not jam the lower leagues full of young English players? If it makes those clubs worse it's no skin off your nose. And if they manage to produce some nice young talent, then that's fantastic-- they did all the scouting and development work for you and you just buy that player cheap and fulfill your English player quota off someone else's dime. All of this-- FPP, EPPP, whatever-- they are trying to turn the Football league into a free development league for the largest PL clubs. The best players young player (English or otherwise) can go to their U18's and train at the academy or go on loan to other PL or European sides. The youth dregs who are not worth investing in go to the Football League. On the off-chance that they develop into something interesting, you just steal them back.
I have no problem with it. Only top class non-EU players can come in (because only the PL can hire them)...frees up a few more places for English lads in the lower leagues. Hardly going to be catastrophic for league clubs.
Yeah, but it's only a cosmetic measure. You need to force clubs to play home-grown players. Forbidding Chelsea to buy some ****e brasilian player won't force them to give chance to Boga, Solanke, Bamford or the lot. They'll just buy some ready made spanish players instead. But if you increase the number of home-grown player every club must have in the squad, that will most certainly bound clubs to have youngsters in their roster, if not for the first team, then at least for rotation. It's the best and most effective solution to this problem. But the implications of it would hurt the domination of 'Big Clubs', so the FA will never introduce it. They will rather pretend to do something like inventing these non-EU quotas, which will have only a cosmetic effect.
I liked Ron's answer when this question was raised in his press conference. He said that Southampton have a lot of English and young players, so the question would be better put to other teams.
