Would reintroducing the foreigner rule improve league football (not international football)?

[Physiocrat]

In a recent thread about players who could have starred for big sides but didn’t, the theme was clear – the names were mostly from before the 2000s. Today the big clubs hoover up the top talent in a way they didn’t in the 1990s and before.

One major reason for this was the Bosman ruling, not because it stopped out of contract players moving to other clubs for free, but rather it stopped the traditional foreigner rules in national leagues: at one point UEFA had a three foreigner rule in the Champions League in the early 90s. Serie A in the 80s had a two foreigner rule. These were abolished by the Bosman Rule as they were considered a restraint on trade and every country within the EU should be considered equally according to the European Court of Justice.

Given the EU isn’t likely to collapse anytime soon, and that top clubs would oppose it, foreigner rules are unlikely to be reinstated however, how would it impact football as a whole? So for instance, suppose a three foreigner rule (on the pitch) was introduced (by all major leagues in Europe) would this improve the game or make it worse?

I think whilst it would probably make the top sides starting XI somewhat worse (although even Pep’s 2010/11 Barca side could play with just Abidal, Dani Alves and Messi as the foreign players and still be immense) it would make the biggest dent in squad depth which would make the leagues more competitive overall. It would also mean that players like Riyadh Mahrez would play every week rather than being a squad rotation option at City (in his first season he sat on the bench for most of it). Also the domestic leagues around Europe and the world would likely be better too, especially in Brazil and Argentina: rather than all the decent players moving to Europe, many would stay in Brazil.

Overall, whilst it would need to be reintroduced gradually over a number of years, I think it would be a very good way of improving the level of competition and making the game more entertaining overall.

NB. I am not wedded to the three man rule, it could be more or less, and you could treat Welsh, Scottish and Irish players as half, or other such adjustments when there are close historic links between countries etc.

Edit: For this rule to be fair and work it would have to be implemented by all of the major European leagues at the same time. Not just the EPL on its own.

Edit 2: I support the foreigner rule to make domestic leagues more competitive, not to improve the England national team. Whilst the football was rather defensive mostly due to 2 points for a win and the referring style, Serie A in the 1980s is an era which is good to look at. Very high quality sides and 6 different league winners in 10 years.

 

[McGrathsipan]

You have a romantic view of the world.
There is far too much money involved for this to ever happen. Ever.
And in todays world you're maybe even a racist for suggesting it.

 

[Sky1981]

You guys never learn do you?

Like seriously... Trying to figure out how to shoot your own foot.

Nobody cares about England, the day Englad FA stupidly hampers good football based on merits and not nationality is the day people stopped watching EPL altogether.

I dont know about you. But 3 foreginer rule would cripple Manchester United as it is. We'd be paying 200M for Sean fecking Longstaff

Good luck attracting Anthony, and many other 80 million plus player when your league stop sellings like hot cakes because talents flock to other league.

 

[Mwooyo]

In a recent thread about players who could have starred for big sides but didn’t, the theme was clear – the names were mostly from before the 2000s. Today the big clubs hoover up the top talent in a way they didn’t in the 1990s and before.

One major reason for this was the Bosman ruling, not because it stopped out of contract players moving to other clubs for free, but rather it stopped the traditional foreigner rules in national leagues: at one point UEFA had a three foreigner rule in the Champions League in the early 90s. Serie A in the 80s had a two foreigner rule. These were abolished by the Bosman Rule as they were considered a restraint on trade and every country within the EU should be considered equally according to the European Court of Justice.

Given the EU isn’t likely to collapse anytime soon, and that top clubs would oppose it, foreigner rules are unlikely to be reinstated however, how would it impact football as a whole? So for instance, suppose a three foreigner rule (on the pitch) was introduced would this improve the game or make it worse?

I think whilst it would probably make the top sides starting XI somewhat worse (although even Pep’s 2010/11 Barca side could play with just Abidal, Dani Alves and Messi as the foreign players and still be immense) it would make the biggest dent in squad depth which would make the leagues more competitive overall. It would also mean that players like Riyadh Mahrez would play every week rather than being a squad rotation option at City (in his first season he sat on the bench for most of it). Also the domestic leagues around Europe and the world would likely be better too, especially in Brazil and Argentina: rather than all the decent players moving to Europe, many would stay in Brazil.

Overall, whilst it would need to be reintroduced gradually over a number of years, I think it would be a very good way of improving the level of competition and making the game more entertaining overall.

NB. I am not wedded to the three man rule, it could be more or less, and you could treat Welsh, Scottish and Irish players as half, or other such adjustments when there are close historic links between countries etc.

Edit: For this rule to be fair and work it would have to be implemented by all of the major European leagues at the same time. Not just the EPL on its own.

Every so often, someone brings this idea up again over and over. This foreigner rule didnt work before to lift English National team football and it certainly wont work even if its brought back.

You know the only thing that works to improve the England National team....getting good...and part of getting good is to compete fairly againist world class talents. When you see John stones or sterling or Harry Kane starting in the prem, it should be because they are good, not because they are English.

Even when it was in effect, England remained poor football wise. Even to this day, the supposed English team that should have won the euros where not very good to watch....italy were worse but England just aint good yet. Whether they win or not, they wont standout in the pantheon of great teams because of how they won....do you remember that awful greece team...ya, England will slot in next to them unless they improve the quality of their play

Lastly, There is this idea that top players dont want to be rotation players and if this rule came about, they would go start in some other teams. Its probably based on the wrong assumption. Top players want to win top trophies and they would rather be a rotation option in a top team rather than being a top player in a small team. Winning is the most important characteristic

 

[Skills]

Footballs as good as it's ever been


Why do you want to take it back to a much worse era?

 

[RopersReturn]

Having essentially home-based players in your team is a nostalgic and sentimental notion, although I’m not entirely sure why more of our youth players don’t get a chance?

One recent aspect of favouring British players has been an inflationary hike in transfer fees ( Maguire, Chris Wood, Joe Willcock,) compared the cheaper cost of a usually superior overseas signing.

 

[Andycoleno9]

You would end by paying triple English tax when buying players and double wages on home grown players. Without being able to compete with foreign clubs in Europe. Lineup would be something like this;
Henderson
AWB, Maguire, Varane, Shaw
Bruno, Longstaff (80mil), Maddison (120mil)
Antony, Rashford, Sancho

Bench; Toney (100mil), Jones, Williams, Garner, Laird etc....

 

[DWelbz19]

If the plan is to improve [English] football, then I think we'd be better off trying to promote coaches to go abroad and work their way up organically in the way that Graham 'Harry' Potter did. Or encouraging more young English players to take the plunge to a foreign league in the way the likes of Bellingham, Sancho, Edwards, Tomori etc. did. Even though the current gaffer doesn't seem to be too hot on most of them.

Otherwise, I don't see how forcing teams to field a certain amount of English players improves anything for Football as a whole. It will in fact probably have the inverse effect of dropping the quality on show within the Premier League.

 

[duffer]

One recent aspect of favouring British players has been an inflationary hike in transfer fees ( Maguire, Chris Wood, Joe Willcock,) compared the cheaper cost of a usually superior overseas signing.

Chris Wood is not British and Joe Willcock is not a footballer.

 

[Physiocrat]

Every so often, someone brings this idea up again over and over. This foreigner rule didnt work before to lift English National team football and it certainly wont work even if its brought back.

You know the only thing that works to improve the England National team....getting good...and part of getting good is to compete fairly againist world class talents. When you see John stones or sterling or Harry Kane starting in the prem, it should be because they are good, not because they are English.

Even when it was in effect, England remained poor football wise. Even to this day, the supposed English team that should have won the euros where not very good to watch....italy were worse but England just aint good yet. Whether they win or not, they wont standout in the pantheon of great teams because of how they won....do you remember that awful greece team...ya, England will slot in next to them unless they improve the quality of their play

My purpose is to increase the competitiveness of the domestic leagues and to make things like the CL more interesting and unpredictable, not to improve the English national team. I actually think they might become worse for the reasons you outline.

Lastly, There is this idea that top players dont want to be rotation players and if this rule came about, they would go start in some other teams. Its probably based on the wrong assumption. Top players want to win top trophies and they would rather be a rotation option in a top team rather than being a top player in a small team. Winning is the most important characteristic

Possibly true, which is why I'd also introduce a smaller max squad size and reduce the size of the benches. Max squad size may be of 18 for over 21s and benches back to 3 players per bench. I'm not set on these numbers but something like that could work. Things like Financial Fair Play and salary caps etc will just be got around, so we need on the pitch restrictions, if you want to make the game more even quality wise (if you don't then clearly you don't need to do anything).

 

[André Dominguez]

Yes. Reintroduce the three foreign players rule and see the Premier League quality instantly drops. English teams would be in disadvantage, because all other top teams were harvesting talent from multiple countries, while you would had to be creative enough to field 8 UK players with enough technical level to compete against teams with a much bigger talent pool at their disposal.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

You would end by paying triple English tax when buying players and double wages on home grown players. Without being able to compete with foreign clubs in Europe. Lineup would be something like this;
Henderson
AWB, Maguire, Varane, Shaw
Bruno, Longstaff (80mil), Maddison (120mil)
Antony, Rashford, Sancho

Bench; Toney (100mil), Jones, Williams, Garner, Laird etc....

You guys never learn do you?

Like seriously... Trying to figure out how to shoot your own foot.

Nobody cares about England, the day Englad FA stupidly hampers good football based on merits and not nationality is the day people stopped watching EPL altogether.

I dont know about you. But 3 foreginer rule would cripple Manchester United as it is. We'd be paying 200M for Sean fecking Longstaff

Good luck attracting Anthony, and many other 80 million plus player when your league stop sellings like hot cakes because talents flock to other league.

But everyone else would be worse too:

Man City

Ederson
Walker - Stones - Harwood-Bellis - Cancelo
Phillips - De Bruyne - Doyle
Foden - Palmer - Grealish

or

Liverpool

Alisson
Trent - Phillips - Gomez - Robertson
Milner - Henderson - Oxlade-Chamberlain
Elliott - Firmino - Salah

 

[duffer]

Every English side should have an English manger, starting from this weekend.

Chelsea and Newcastle are fine, who do Man United go for?

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Lot of weird but predictable replies in here. Not once did the poster mention the England NT yet most replies are as if that's the central point.

Football would be more equitable if such rules were applied across all leagues, as the poster suggested. It would make for more interesting European competition with more different winners. The quality of the knockout stages of Europe's top would reduce in quality though. Overall I think it would be a positive for football but it won't happen.

 

[duffer]

Lot of weird but predictable replies in here. Not once did the poster mention the England NT yet most replies are as if that's the central point.

He mentioned it in the last paragraph. It's a hefty OP but it's in there.

 

[Steve Bruce]

Footballs as good as it's ever been


Why do you want to take it back to a much worse era?

I really don't agree with this. Football now is as uncompetitive as it ever has been due to the money involved.

All the big leagues are heading into a Scottish football type of competitive.

City have won 4 of the last 5 titles and will likely make it 3 in a row and 5 in 6.

Bayern Munich have won 10 in a row or something ridiculous like that.

Spain it's generally 2 teams with the odd other team now and again.

The lack of physicality in football, the constant changing of rules to suit technology, most teams playing keep ball rather than taking risks.

 

[André Dominguez]

Now that I think about it, La Liga is still one of the most strict top leagues in foreign rules and it seems to work for them.

What is the non-EU players rule?
In La Liga, each club is allowed five non-EU players, but are only allowed to name three non-EU players in each matchday squad.

The term 'non-EU' refers to a player whose country of citizenship is outside of the European Union.

And you can only apply to Spanish citizenship after 10 years living in Spain and having zero criminal offenses.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

He mentioned it in the last paragraph. It's a hefty OP but it's in there.

Have they edited it out or I have gone blind?

Personally I think a 2 foreigner rule would be even better. Even if you go back to the 90s in the CL there were 7 winners from different countries with 9 different clubs winning it. Surely that's better that better than what we have now. In the 2010s there were only winners from 3 countries shared between 4 clubs.

 

[duffer]

I really don't agree with this. Football now is as uncompetitive as it ever has been due to the money involved.

Man United won it 8 out of 11 times in the late 90s to early 00s. Liverpool won it 10 out of 15 times in the 80s and 90s.

The English title is about as competitive as it's been for nearly 40 years.

Scotland has always been a two horse race and La Liga isn't far off.

Something needs to be done in Germany though, 10 in a row and more than 3 x as many titles as the next team is bananas.

 

[FrankFoot]

The 3 foreign rule would kill Manchester City domination of the PL and PSG domination of Ligue 1, and bring back the like of Ajax,Benfica,Marseille,Porto,PSV, to the Champions League further stages.

And Bayern wouldn't win 10 Bundesligas in a row either.

Seems good to me, but would never happen because of money.

 

[duffer]

The 3 foreign rule would kill Manchester City domination of the PL and PSG domination of Ligue 1,

They'd just buy all the best English or French players.

 

[Skills]

I really don't agree with this. Football now is as uncompetitive as it ever has been due to the money involved.

All the big leagues are heading into a Scottish football type of competitive.

City have won 4 of the last 5 titles and will likely make it 3 in a row and 5 in 6.

Bayern Munich have won 10 in a row or something ridiculous like that.

Spain it's generally 2 teams with the odd other team now and again.

The lack of physicality in football, the constant changing of rules to suit technology, most teams playing keep ball rather than taking risks.

I don't think this does anything at all to resolve that problem. I think some better solutions are:

- Min 3 players in your matchday squad that have graduated from the academy
- Restrict the squad sizes - cap the number of over 21 players a clubs allowed to keep on its books (including loans).
- Ban things such as buy back clauses

You need to stop the top clubs hoarding talent for depth.

 

[duffer]

I don't think this does anything at all to resolve that problem. I think some better solutions are:

- Min 3 players in your matchday squad that have graduated from the academy
- Restrict the squad sizes - cap the number of over 21 players a clubs allowed to keep on its books (including loans).
- Ban things such as buy back clauses

You need to stop the top clubs hoarding talent for depth.

3 isn't enough. With the ridiculously big benches now everyone already does it.

Regarding buy-back clauses, who were the last few players actually brought back by the selling club? I honestly can't think of any in the Prem.

 

[Stacks]

In a recent thread about players who could have starred for big sides but didn’t, the theme was clear – the names were mostly from before the 2000s. Today the big clubs hoover up the top talent in a way they didn’t in the 1990s and before.

One major reason for this was the Bosman ruling, not because it stopped out of contract players moving to other clubs for free, but rather it stopped the traditional foreigner rules in national leagues: at one point UEFA had a three foreigner rule in the Champions League in the early 90s. Serie A in the 80s had a two foreigner rule. These were abolished by the Bosman Rule as they were considered a restraint on trade and every country within the EU should be considered equally according to the European Court of Justice.

Given the EU isn’t likely to collapse anytime soon, and that top clubs would oppose it, foreigner rules are unlikely to be reinstated however, how would it impact football as a whole? So for instance, suppose a three foreigner rule (on the pitch) was introduced (by all major leagues in Europe) would this improve the game or make it worse?

I think whilst it would probably make the top sides starting XI somewhat worse (although even Pep’s 2010/11 Barca side could play with just Abidal, Dani Alves and Messi as the foreign players and still be immense) it would make the biggest dent in squad depth which would make the leagues more competitive overall. It would also mean that players like Riyadh Mahrez would play every week rather than being a squad rotation option at City (in his first season he sat on the bench for most of it). Also the domestic leagues around Europe and the world would likely be better too, especially in Brazil and Argentina: rather than all the decent players moving to Europe, many would stay in Brazil.

Overall, whilst it would need to be reintroduced gradually over a number of years, I think it would be a very good way of improving the level of competition and making the game more entertaining overall.

NB. I am not wedded to the three man rule, it could be more or less, and you could treat Welsh, Scottish and Irish players as half, or other such adjustments when there are close historic links between countries etc.

Edit: For this rule to be fair and work it would have to be implemented by all of the major European leagues at the same time. Not just the EPL on its own.

Edit 2: I support the foreigner rule to make domestic leagues more competitive, not to improve the England national team. Whilst the football was rather defensive mostly due to 2 points for a win and the referring style, Serie A in the 1980s is an era which is good to look at. Very high quality sides and 6 different league winners in 10 years.

restricting your work possibilities based off nationality seems unconstitutional and a bit xenophobic/nationalistic.

You have a romantic view of the world.
There is far too much money involved for this to ever happen. Ever.
And in todays world you're maybe even a racist for suggesting it.

You guys never learn do you?

Like seriously... Trying to figure out how to shoot your own foot.

Nobody cares about England, the day Englad FA stupidly hampers good football based on merits and not nationality is the day people stopped watching EPL altogether.

I dont know about you. But 3 foreginer rule would cripple Manchester United as it is. We'd be paying 200M for Sean fecking Longstaff

Good luck attracting Anthony, and many other 80 million plus player when your league stop sellings like hot cakes because talents flock to other league.

Every so often, someone brings this idea up again over and over. This foreigner rule didnt work before to lift English National team football and it certainly wont work even if its brought back.

You know the only thing that works to improve the England National team....getting good...and part of getting good is to compete fairly againist world class talents. When you see John stones or sterling or Harry Kane starting in the prem, it should be because they are good, not because they are English.

Even when it was in effect, England remained poor football wise. Even to this day, the supposed English team that should have won the euros where not very good to watch....italy were worse but England just aint good yet. Whether they win or not, they wont standout in the pantheon of great teams because of how they won....do you remember that awful greece team...ya, England will slot in next to them unless they improve the quality of their play

Lastly, There is this idea that top players dont want to be rotation players and if this rule came about, they would go start in some other teams. Its probably based on the wrong assumption. Top players want to win top trophies and they would rather be a rotation option in a top team rather than being a top player in a small team. Winning is the most important characteristic

If the plan is to improve [English] football, then I think we'd be better off trying to promote coaches to go abroad and work their way up organically in the way that Graham 'Harry' Potter did. Or encouraging more young English players to take the plunge to a foreign league in the way the likes of Bellingham, Sancho, Edwards, Tomori etc. did. Even though the current gaffer doesn't seem to be too hot on most of them.

Otherwise, I don't see how forcing teams to field a certain amount of English players improves anything for Football as a whole. It will in fact probably have the inverse effect of dropping the quality on show within the Premier League.

All facts. I could continue quoting because everyone can see it is/was an awful idea and does nothing for us as a nation. Cream rises to the top not by minimizing the competition.

 

[Andycoleno9]

But everyone else would be worse too:

Man City

Ederson
Walker - Stones - Harwood-Bellis - Cancelo
Phillips - De Bruyne - Doyle
Foden - Palmer - Grealish

or

Liverpool

Alisson
Trent - Phillips - Gomez - Robertson
Milner - Henderson - Oxlade-Chamberlain
Elliott - Firmino - Salah

But the point is that whole league (including us) would be weaker. Which would result with;
1) not be able to compete in Europe
2) less income from sponsors
3) higher transfer fees and wages

3 foreign players rule would work only IF whole Europe would adopt it (same as transfer deadline failed experiment few years ago).

 

[SilentWitness]

3 isn't enough. With the ridiculously big benches now everyone already does it.

Regarding buy-back clauses, who were the last few players actually brought back by the selling club? I honestly can't think of any in the Prem.

Matic? (Not sure if there was a clause).

 

[Skills]

3 isn't enough. With the ridiculously big benches now everyone already does it.

Regarding buy-back clauses, who were the last few players actually brought back by the selling club? I honestly can't think of any in the Prem.

It's not an issue now, but it goes hand in hand with the idea of restricting the number of senior players a clubs allowed to keep on its books. Buyback clauses will just let them circumvent that.

 

[Rnd898]

Any strict 'foreigner rule' would IMO just widen the gap between the best and the worst sides even more in almost every domestic league because the top clubs with more money from their past successes would just hoover up all somewhat decent players from the smaller teams to fill their own squads, whether they actually need them or not. At least now the smaller teams in the EPL can hold on to some of their quality English players for a bit longer but with regulations like that there's absolutely no chance the likes of Rice, Toney, Bowen, Maddison etc. would still be playing for their current teams because they'd have been snapped up by the big boys very early on.

In the Premier League I'm guessing it would mostly just be the 80-100 best British players divided between the top6 and the rest of the league, let alone the lower leagues, would be left feeding on scraps with even less hope of ever being competitive than under current rules. I also don't think the English teams would ever be really competitive in Europe because the country would have many clubs with decent enough resources competing for the small group of good/promising English players and they'd be at a serious disadvantage compared to clubs like Bayern, PSG who would just monopolize their own country's player pool even more than they currently do.

It doesn't exactly sit right with me that such rules would also essentially prevent a lot of players from the smaller footballing countries from ever making a top career in the best leagues. Clubs would need to be absolutely sure about the player being good enough to risk one of their few 'foreigner places' to sign a player and the best way to do that would be to just focus on the ones who've previously proven themselves in the leagues of other top countries. Countries like Sweden, Denmark, Croatia, Serbia etc. produce good and great players on a semi-regular basis but if the same players were restricted to staying in their domestic leagues, where mind you there is no real money to be earned, for too long to 'prove themselves' before earning a chance would they ever develop to be as good? And that's not even mentioning players from Africa, Asia etc. where the lifeline for a player to have a top level career is to make the move to one of the top footballing countries as early as possible to get the best available coaching and playing at a higher level to develop.

Homegrown rules are fine and I wouldn't mind it if they even reduced the non-HG quota by a couple players but other than that any strict restrictions on allowing just a few 'foreigner' players in any team has no place in today's game and are nothing but xenophobic.

 

[duffer]

Matic? (Not sure if there was a clause).

Nah, we spent a ton getting him back, wasn't a clause.

 

[duffer]

It's not an issue now, but it goes hand in hand with the idea of restricting the number of senior players a clubs allowed to keep on its books. Buyback clauses will just let them circumvent that.

You're probably right. Chelsea have tried to stick one in on almost all our recent sales of younger players.

 

[SilentWitness]

Nah, we spent a ton getting him back, wasn't a clause.

Fair!

Angelino at City, the LB. You are right though, it's rare.

 

[Lay]

Now that I think about it, La Liga is still one of the most strict top leagues in foreign rules and it seems to work for them.



And you can only apply to Spanish citizenship after 10 years living in Spain and having zero criminal offenses.

Italy have one too. Only 1 non EU signing allowed per season.

 

[Skills]

Extreme Idea
- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loanees)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

So what would that mean for United this season?

We'd have to cut our PL squad by 6 as we have 25 senior players registered. We also have 4 players over the age of 21 on loan on top of that.

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

It would kill the PL.
Selling TV rights around the world for them to watch Sean Longstaff win the PL, yeah right.

No other country would adopt this so all the top players from around the world would just join the other top leagues in Europe.
If the UK adopted this it would just make the German and French leagues far more competitive. Be good for everyone else , bad for the UK. Seems a familiar theme.

 

[Physiocrat]

Lot of weird but predictable replies in here. Not once did the poster mention the England NT yet most replies are as if that's the central point.

Football would be more equitable if such rules were applied across all leagues, as the poster suggested. It would make for more interesting European competition with more different winners. The quality of the knockout stages of Europe's top would reduce in quality though. Overall I think it would be a positive for football but it won't happen.

I am glad you can read unlike many of the other posters.

He mentioned it in the last paragraph. It's a hefty OP but it's in there.

I added England in as an edit to explicitly say that I wasn't talking about the national team.

 

[SAFMUTD]

It would definitely weaken the premier league. For a start there are not enough English/British players to fill out all the teams while sustaining the current quality.

For foreigners like me, we fell in love with the Premier League due to the level of the competition. We don't care the slightest about england players or their national team. It all about the level and competition, that's why the premier league it's so popular. But things go around in cycles, Serie A was highly popular and arguably the most important in the 90s, now it's not even a top 3 league in level nor revenue. That could easily happen to the premier league as well.

Fill the teams with Tom Cleverlys and Sean Long staffs and you'll scare away the new audiences which will inevitably lead to less income for all the teams.

 

[Sandikan]

Imagine how much English players would cost if there was the foreigner rule again! Heck.

 

[Rnd898]

Extreme Idea
- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loanees)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down.

I mostly like your suggestions but the last bit is outrageous whichever way you look at it.

Wouldn't it basically just allow clubs to easily get rid of whichever player they don't fancy anymore and who they want to get off their wage bill? At least currently the players are actually protected by their contracts and the clubs are forced to continue paying them even if they're not really needed anymore. No way the PFA or their equivalent in other countries would go for something like that, even if in some cases being released could end up being to the player's benefit.

Unless you mean that upon releasing the player at the end of the window the club, in addition to losing out on any transfer fee for selling them, would also have to pay off the player's full contract for however long it had remaining. In that case there's zero chance the clubs (ECA) would accept something like that being made into a rule.

 

[Lecland07]

A minority of people have the ability to become professional footballers. A minority of that minority have the ability to play in the Premier League. Worse, a minority of that minority are good enough to play at the top.

The market would be very limited. In 2007/08, Chelsea and Manutd were the best teams in the world. England had a strong squad at that point, also, and there were ten English starters in the final from both teams combined. That is a lot of players from one nationality, but it still only equates to 45% of starting players.

Apply this rule to that same game. If this rule existed, and assuming all three of those foreign players were first team, you would require 73% of them to be English. That is a massive jump from 10/22 to 16/22 - it will be incredibly difficult for each side to get another 3 English players of the required level, considering only a minority of a small pool of Premier League players are good enough for that level.

There wouldn't be enough to go around. Even when Spain were at their peak, Barcelona had 6 Spanish starters and Real Madrid had 2/3. Real Madrid, in particular, would have had a very hard time to adapt to this rule.

 

[Thunderhead]

Extreme Idea
- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loanees)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

So what would that mean for United this season?

We'd have to cut our PL squad by 6 as we have 25 senior players registered. We also have 4 players over the age of 21 on loan on top of that.

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

At City, we'd already be good with that, we only have 21 Senior players and one of those is Scott Carson, bench this season has mainly been Palmer (20) Lewis (17) Wilson-Esbrand (19), so we'd probably need to lose 1 of Gundo, Mahrez at the end of this season.

Buyback clauses would be a bummer, we've put that on quite a few decent prospects in the last couple of seasons.