New Football League Rule

[andrew1957]

I have just realized that we may have a problem with these rules. As under 21 players as at 1/1/10 cannot form part of the 25 man squad that excludes Sig, R-K, Cummings, Karacan, Kelly, McCarthy and Henry. All will be eligible to play for Reading but not be part of the squad as they are too young.

We are then really pushed to fund 10 homegrown players from the remainder of the squad.

[Wycombe Royal]

I have just realized that we may have a problem with these rules. As under 21 players as at 1/1/10 cannot form part of the 25 man squad that excludes Sig, R-K, Cummings, Karacan, Kelly, McCarthy and Henry. All will be eligible to play for Reading but not be part of the squad as they are too young.

We are then really pushed to fund 10 homegrown players from the remainder of the squad.

I don't understand why they would use 1/1/10 and not the date of the start of the season to which the squad applies?

[chilipepper91]

I have just realized that we may have a problem with these rules. As under 21 players as at 1/1/10 cannot form part of the 25 man squad that excludes Sig, R-K, Cummings, Karacan, Kelly, McCarthy and Henry. All will be eligible to play for Reading but not be part of the squad as they are too young.

We are then really pushed to fund 10 homegrown players from the remainder of the squad.

I don't understand why they would use 1/1/10 and not the date of the start of the season to which the squad applies?

It's 31st August
It's 8 players
Yes they can

[Wycombe Royal]

I have just realized that we may have a problem with these rules. As under 21 players as at 1/1/10 cannot form part of the 25 man squad that excludes Sig, R-K, Cummings, Karacan, Kelly, McCarthy and Henry. All will be eligible to play for Reading but not be part of the squad as they are too young.

We are then really pushed to fund 10 homegrown players from the remainder of the squad.

I don't understand why they would use 1/1/10 and not the date of the start of the season to which the squad applies?

It's 31st August
It's 8 players
Yes they can

It's 10 players - 8 is the Premiership.....

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Seems to me this has been a bit misinterpeted.

Key point is, U21s are exempt. You could name an entire squad of 19 year olds from the acadamy if you wish.

If you were to go back through our squads from last yeat, i would bet most if not all would qualify under the new rules.

[andrew1957]

Seems to me this has been a bit misinterpeted.

Key point is, U21s are exempt. You could name an entire squad of 19 year olds from the acadamy if you wish.

If you were to go back through our squads from last yeat, i would bet most if not all would qualify under the new rules.

I think you are missing the point. Yes you are right in that a match day squad could be made up 100% of 20 year olds, but the squad list of 25 that we need to submit at the end of August is for the over age 21 players and in that squad the rule seems to say that you need 10 homegrown players over 21 year old as squad members. The question would be whether we could in that case include some of our younger players in the 25 just to make the numbers up. Sig for example will be a key player next year so there would be no good reason to exclude him from the 25 apart from his age.

As for when the age limit applies - there are several mentions of 1st Jan on the web but no mention of 31st Aug as being the relevant date that I can find. I am happy to be corrected on this as it would solve the problem that I am mentioning as some of our players like Henry are 21 by 31st Aug.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Seems to me this has been a bit misinterpeted.

Key point is, U21s are exempt. You could name an entire squad of 19 year olds from the acadamy if you wish.

If you were to go back through our squads from last yeat, i would bet most if not all would qualify under the new rules.

the rule seems to say that you need 10 homegrown players over 21 year old as squad members. .

Does it? I dont think that is the rule at all, I think its just badly worded in the article.

You have a max number of Over 21s of which 10 must be homegrown. That doesnt mean you have to have 10 players over 21. You could have a squad of say 18 with 10 teenagers.

[Wycombe Royal]

The official site has published our squad status in relation to this rule.

[Snowball]

Whether this rule stands or has been dropped it's a big mistake.

If we had zero foreign players in the Premiership then 99% of the England team
would be playing in the Premiership. Big Deal.

The John Terry's of this world wouldn't be coming up against the likes of Drogba, Anelka, Ronaldo
van Pirsie, Torres, Bendtner, Eduardo, Arshavin every week.

Their "difficult" games would be handling Rooney and um, Rooney.


As long as there are 40-80 England-qualified players playing in the top league,
then the better the quality of that league, the more experience those TOP
players will gain against the world's best.

Just filling the Premiership with English players means that yes, more English players get to play there
but they'll be playing against English players who are currently Championship or League 1 standard and
not considered good enough for the top division.

Top British football professionals are now tested against the world's best players (some of the best, anyway)
week-in, week-out. That should make them better players.

[Wycombe Royal]

I don't really think that a requirement to have 8 home grown players over the age of 21 in the Premiership, meaning you can have 17 non-home grown is really going to change anything........

[Squelchy2507]

Age restriction rule
Firstly, the new rules restrict clubs' first team squads to a maximum of 25 players over the age of 21 (ages calculated on the 1st January in the year in which the season commences).

Our current squad contains 21 players who qualify as 'over 21s' so has room for four more. And phenomenally, our current first team squad also boasts 18 players who are under the age of 21!

Total number of professionals who were aged 21 or over on 1st January 2010: 21
Total allowed for 2010/11: 25

- Mikkel Andersen, Chris Armstrong, Simon Church, Kalifa Cisse, Scott Davies, Adam Federici, Brynjar Gunnarsson, Ben Hamer, Brian Howard, Noel Hunt, Ivar Ingimarsson, Jimmy Kebe, Shane Long, Marek Matejovsky, Matt Mills, Jobi McAnuff, David Mooney, Alex Pearce, Grzegorz Rasiak, Jay Tabb, Marcus Williams.

Total number of professionals who were aged under 21 on 1st January 2010: 18
Total allowed for 2010/11: unlimited

- Michail Antonio, Abdulai Bell-Baggie, Nicholas Bignall, Shaun Cummings, Michael Hector, James Henry, Danny Joyce, Jem Karacan, Julian Kelly, Simon Locke, Alex McCarthy, Jack Mills, Frankie Raymond, Hal Robson-Kanu, James Rowe, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jake Taylor, Jacob Walcott.

Home grown rule
Secondly, the new rules impose a limit of a maximum of 15 non-'home grown' players in first team squads. 'Home grown' means a player must have been registered in domestic football for at least three seasons before their 21st birthday.

Again, our squad copes admirably with this limit - with the full squad only containing 11 non-'home grown' players:

Total number of professionals who are registered as non-'home grown': 11
Total allowed for 2010/11: 15

- Mikkel Andersen, Kalifa Cisse, Adam Federici, Brynjar Gunnarsson, Noel Hunt, Ivar Ingimarsson, Danny Joyce (will be home grown as from 2011/12 season), Jimmy Kebe, Marek Matejovsky, David Mooney, Grzegorz Rasiak.

Total number of professionals who are registered as 'home grown': 28
Total allowed for 2010/11: unlimited

- Michail Antonio, Chris Armstrong, Abdulai Bell-Baggie, Nicholas Bignall, Simon Church, Shaun Cummings, Scott Davies, Ben Hamer, Michael Hector, James Henry, Brian Howard, Jem Karacan, Julian Kelly, Simon Locke, Shane Long, Alex McCarthy, Jack Mills, Matt Mills, Jobi McAnuff, Alex Pearce, Frankie Raymond,
Hal Robson-Kanu, James Rowe, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jay Tabb, Jake Taylor, Jacob Walcott, Marcus Williams.

[Wycombe Royal]

RFC won't like you stealing their article and not quoting the source or providing a link.........

[Sun Tzu]

Top British football professionals are now tested against the world's best players (some of the best, anyway)
week-in, week-out. That should make them better players.

I've spotted the massive flaw in your arguement....

You also need to consider that if you only have 20 or so (is it actually anywhere near that ?) English players playing at the very top level (ie Champions league) then you have virtually no competition for places in the National side. We have hardly any places in the England team where we have any choice - other than between players who are not actually good enough. We need to have a larger number of English players playing at the top level so that we start actually leaving players out who should be playing, rather than muddling through with 10 journeymen plus Rooney.

[chilipepper91]

Aye.

Johnson, Terry, A. Cole, Gerrard, Lampard, Barry, Lennon (to an extent) and Rooney all knew that if they were fit they'd start. I reckon only two at most of them would get into a World 23/second string 23. GKs are one inexperienced and two who played for bad teams, centre-backs have no international experience and are in their prime so probably won't be around next WC, we STILL don't have a left-footed winger (though Johnson will be he next time round) and we don't have the right striker/midfielder to compliment Rooney, who seems to want to be left alone up top.

[Forbury Lion]

So basically:

We name a squad of 25 over 21's of which 10 must be home grown plus as many under 21's can play as we like.

Presumably the squad can be resubmitted at the close of the January transfer window to take into account transfers in and out.

[Snowball]

Top British football professionals are now tested against the world's best players (some of the best, anyway)
week-in, week-out. That should make them better players.

I've spotted the massive flaw in your arguement....

You also need to consider that if you only have 20 or so (is it actually anywhere near that ?) English players playing at the very top level (ie Champions league) then you have virtually no competition for places in the National side. We have hardly any places in the England team where we have any choice - other than between players who are not actually good enough. We need to have a larger number of English players playing at the top level so that we start actually leaving players out who should be playing, rather than muddling through with 10 journeymen plus Rooney.

Can't agree. Champions League isn't enough

Playing week-in, week-out in the Premiership against many top-class foreign players (38 games a season) (who are also in the Premiership)

WINS versus

Playing week-in, week-out in the Premiership against bog-standard English players (38 games a season) and then
(only one fifth of the teams) playing a few games against mediocre European sides, then getting 1-2-3 ties versus
better European opposition

[Sun Tzu]

Top British football professionals are now tested against the world's best players (some of the best, anyway)
week-in, week-out. That should make them better players.

I've spotted the massive flaw in your arguement....

You also need to consider that if you only have 20 or so (is it actually anywhere near that ?) English players playing at the very top level (ie Champions league) then you have virtually no competition for places in the National side. We have hardly any places in the England team where we have any choice - other than between players who are not actually good enough. We need to have a larger number of English players playing at the top level so that we start actually leaving players out who should be playing, rather than muddling through with 10 journeymen plus Rooney.

Can't agree. Champions League isn't enough

Playing week-in, week-out in the Premiership against many top-class foreign players (38 games a season) (who are also in the Premiership)

WINS versus

Playing week-in, week-out in the Premiership against bog-standard English players (38 games a season) and then
(only one fifth of the teams) playing a few games against mediocre European sides, then getting 1-2-3 ties versus
better European opposition

Not every Premiership side has top class foreign players.

And Premiership football is nothing like international football.

Champions League games are much closer to international football.

And your arguement is still fatally flawed becasue it doesn't produce the results you claim it will. The only time we won the world cup the nearest we had to foreign players in the english game were the Scots....

[Forbury Lion]

Players should be picked for position, what they can do in a team, not their general perceived ability.

The North Koreans seemed to do against Brazil by fielding 11 right wingers

Seriously though, It is about picking the best team not the best 11 individuals. In many respects, If we had a premiership team fielded an English back 4 and goalkeeper all season then they would probably perform better for England as a unit than picking 5 better players from different teams with no experience of playing together week in week out.

[donface]

Players should be picked for position, what they can do in a team, not their general perceived ability.

The North Koreans seemed to do against Brazil by fielding 11 right wingers

[Sun Tzu]

Sun Tzu, you make good points, but I also think that the problem is not just that there aren't enough good players to pick for a certain position.
The problem is equally as much picking the best players, and then not thinking what position they should play.
Anyone knows Lampard and Gerrard shouldn't be playing together, for example.
Players should be picked for position, what they can do in a team, not their general perceived ability.

.

Although in many World Cups Brazil picked 8 attacking players, a couple of token defenders and a bloke pulled off the street to stand in goal.

They just played and it seemed to work !