A fresh start for English football with a brand new Premier League

The English Premier League is going to start within a month and every team has started working on their squad in the pre-season with training and friendlies to take care of. The league would begin with the traditional Community Shield that will see Manchester United take on the league winning Chelsea squad. This year will also see an amendment in the English Premier League i.e. THE 25 RULE – the clubs from this season onwards will have to restrict their squad to 25 personnel rather than 30 men squad that they used to have previously.

English premier League: a new beginning with new rules for English football

It is not as stringent as it looks because the catch here is that this 25 men squad includes only the players above the age of 21 and the teams are free to have as many youngsters below the age of 21 in their rooster as they like. This rule has further more facets to it and the most important of them is the HOME GROWN quota. With so many pundits lambasting England for the domestic league structure they have with so many clubs fielding non British sides that may even lead to their eventual decline as they say.

Keeping such things in mind, the Football Association (FA) has decided to come up with this rule. The clubs will need to have at least 8 home grown players in their 25 men squad (and the term home grown means that a player above the age of 21 that has played for a British club for at least 3 years at youth level I.e. between the age of 16-21). Thus home grown players are not only English nationals but players like Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy who have come through the ranks, moreover in coming years youngsters like da Silva twins, Carlos Vela and Danny Pacheco who despite being non British would be termed as home grown. Meanwhile Owen Hargreaves who is an English citizen cannot be termed as a home grown player because he spent his early days with Bayern Munich academy and never played in England or Wales for that matter before being 21 .Therefore teams having great English or Welsh contention will see themselves in a comfortable position and teams that have players coming from their academy and youth system will also reap benefit of the system.

This rule has in a way has propelled the clubs to look for talent within England rather than going out of England in search of players. Thus the clubs like Manchester City cannot go over the top trying to buy success because this rule curbs them from doing so.