English teams will bank on youth

New rules introduce home-grown quota and Premier League chief aims to keep more money in the British game by reducing overseas signings.

The days of English Premier League clubs filling their squads with a mix of cheap foreign imports and expensive players from overseas appear to be over. Make no mistake, the Premier League's decision to introduce strict new rules aimed at protecting the future of the domestic game - revealed yesterday, but due to be enforced at the start of next season - is the single largest development in the British game since the Premier League's advent in 1993.

Teams used to scouring the markets of Europe, Africa, Asia and South America for bargain-basement squad-fillers and bench-warners will be forced to turn to their academies - as well as those of other English clubs - to ensure they fulfill the regulatory criteria. The rule changes, despite the complicated jargon, are simple. In ten months time, squads will be capped at 25 players, eight of whom must be 'home-grown'. These footballers are defined as those who, irrespective or nationality or age, have spent three full seasons registered with any club in the English football leagues, before their 21st birthdays. The emphasis, insists Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore, is on youth.

"We're not going down the route of a nationality test, but what this will mean is that you just can't buy a team from abroad," said Scudamore. "We think it will give clubs an extra incentive to invest in youth. We think that one of the benefits will be that it will help the England team." As always though, there are exceptions to the rule; take Cesc Fabregas. The Arsenal captain, now 22, was signed from Barcelona's youth academy when he was just 16 years old. Gunners manager Arsene Wenger went back to Catalonia for Fran Merida a few years later - both will be home-grown next August and neither is English.

Under the new rules, which have been muted for some time, Premier League clubs retain the ability to raid outside markets for fledgling talent. The 25-man squads can be supplemented by an infinite number of additions, as long as they are under 21. Thus, in an ironic nod to his "buy or die" critics, Wenger's side - despite its raft of foreign imports - will be more 'home-grown' than the majority of its Premier League competitors next season. Scudamore's new rules, and their non-nationalistic legality, are in tune with the controversial practises of Wenger, and most English clubs, to cherry-pick playing the best youngsters from around the world.

"The clubs will always go abroad and look," said Scudamore. "The important thing is are they looked after and is it done properly and I don't think we will stop that happening any more or any less because of this rule." The belief that Fabio Capello's England will be chief beneficiaries is a long-term one. The short-term knock-on effects will stretch beyond England's national team. After years of neglect, English-born products from every club in the land will be desired by talent-thirsty Premier League clubs again. Bench-warming foreigners will be sold to accommodate home-grown recruits from academies of lower league sides such as Crewe Alexandria, a club who traditionally produced future top-flight players year after year.

With clubs buying more local talent, more top clubs' money should stay in England. "The whole purpose of this is to protect the viability and sustainability of the clubs," Scudamore argues. Indeed, with most Premier League teams crippled by huge, expensive squads, the rules should even the playing field and force clubs to prioritise the development of youth over lavish foreign spending. "It will encourage youth development and the promotion of young players," said Scudamore.

"It's a rule which we think will give clubs an extra incentive to develop players, and to make a better return from their investment in youth." The Premier League chief's new matra is to: "Make, rather than buy," but it will not happen overnight. The compliance of the leading division's clubs, who all approved the new legislation, shows they expected the change. Very few will be alarmed at the new rules, and most have been scampering to buy promising foreign youths for years.

Chelsea's signing of Gael Kakuta from French club Lens may have back-fired - they received a 16-month transfer ban for poaching the player - but it symbolises a worrying trend. English clubs are buying younger, and the Premier League has just endorsed it. With 59.2 per cent of English clubs' players coming from outside the country - the highest rate worldwide - Premier League academies, however, bristle with English talent.

The big losers will be the foreign players, as the 17-man non-home-grown squad quota will make managers think twice before taking a risk on an unproven talent. Ultimately, it is not the next generation of Premier League footballers the new rules will trouble, it is those claiming fat pay cheques in swollen squads. [e-mail]

* From the start of the 2010-11, season each club will, at the end of every transfer window, have to name at least eight "home-grown" players in a squad of 25. * To qualify as home-grown, a player will have had to be registered for at least three seasons at an English or Welsh club between the ages of 16 and 21. * Clubs must submit independently audited accounts to the Premier League by March 1 each year, with requirements to note any issues raised by auditors, and warn if they think they may get in debt in the future. * Clubs must demonstrate to the Premier League Board that they do not have outstanding debts to other clubs or in taxes.