EPL, England, Europe, Features, Ian John, Leagues, Regions POSTS
FA seeking changes to the EPL?
Published by Ian John on November 13, 2009
Are you a soccer fanatic? Do you have strong opinions about the game? Think you have the chops to write about it? Contact Us then...
The team behind England’s disorganised 2018 World Cup bid have met this week to discuss the best way forward for football in England and two former England managers, Howard Wilkinson and Glenn Hoddle have reportedly told the team that by 2018, the England international football team may well be third world nation, in football terms, unless changes are made to the rules that govern the game at the highest level.
Both managers have pointed out that English born and eligible players playing at the highest level are decreasing as more managers opt for foreign signings and the feeling is that this trend will eventually lead to the England national team failing to make the grade at the highest level.
No doubt there will be a huge committee developed to “look into” this matter for the future but that is just a waste of time. It is staggeringly obvious what needs to be done and I’ll save the FA a huge amount of time, money and resources by telling them what they need to do;
1. Limit the number of foreign born players allowed to each club. How this would work given the current EU system I am not sure, but if you cannot exclude players because of their nationality, then you can state that there needs to be a number of home grown players at the club. Not just 6 out of a first team squad of 20, but 14 out of a first team squad of 20. THAT would have an effect.
2. Introduce a salary cap. Each club has an annual salary cap which they cannot surpass. So Manchester United have a salary cap of, say £1m a week, but so do Stoke City. So do Real Madrid. In fact this would only work if it was rolled out across all of football’s major countries. The cap would be scaled to each division, so say in the Championship the cap would be £300,000 a week, Division 1, £150,000 a week, Division 2, £100,000 a week. These are arbitrary figures of course.
3. Limit squad sizes : Self-explanatory. Squad sizes are limited so that reserve team players are once again, reserve team players, and not expensive internationals, earning a huge wage, but not actually playing.
4. Top flight teams to use the “feeder” club system. In addition to loaning feeder clubs players, the top flight teams will provide some of the cash they’d save from these measures by helping those smaller clubs to survive. Helping out by providing cash for coaches and facilities at the lower level which will help improve the standard of the players at the club, including of course those players on loan at the feeder club and thus raising standards across the board.
5. Re-organise the international season and domestic season so that games dovetail together, rather than overlap and upset managers.
6. Players wages to be paid by the FA from the moment they leave on international duty, until the moment they return from it. Also all medical bills etc incurred by a player sustaining any injuries whilst on international duty, to be paid for by the FA.
7. Outlawing the signing of any players from outside their home country until they are 18 or on a full time professional contract.
8. A structured league wide pay structure. So you know a player aged X years who is an international, will earn £X a week whether he is at Stoke or Man Utd.
Can you imagine the uproar in Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd if this came into being? I doubt whether any would be able to continue as they are at the moment. However I believe that is the stark choice that managers face. Players too would rebel, there would be charges of restriction of free trade, removal of rights and all sorts of other complaints. However it is going to need something draconian in order to allow English players the chance to thrive. I am not saying that we have no place for the likes of Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba, Cesc Fabregas or Dimitar Berbatov. Of course they’d be a fantastic addition to the English game. What I don’t like is the situation we have now, say at Liverpool, where we have David Ngog, a willing striker. But to my mind, no better than say David Mellor, a young English striker who had to leave to join Preston to get first team football. You can repeat that analogy at almost every other club.
It’s not that English players are not good enough. That is a fallacy. What it is, is that clubs go for foreign players because they are cheaper.
There’s no easy answer and it requires Draconian measures to pur right. Will the FA have the guts to put forth the vision needed to improve things? Somehow I doubt it.
Picture Courtesy of ***Twin Peaks*** at Flickr.com
Loading ...
