New Premier League squad rules explained, through black and white eyes.
Posted on July 20th, 2010 | 182 Comments |
I am of course talking about the new ‘home-grown’ and ’25 man squad’ rules that come into force this season. But how does it affect Newcastle?
Well let’s start off by looking at the rules themselves. The intention is to nudge clubs in the direction of nurturing youth players rather than buying established ones all the time, although whether it works or not is something that will only become clear over time. It wont stop clubs going abroad to buy top youngsters, but it should stop clubs from warehousing them.
Basically, a squad can name a 25 players in their squad for the league season, and of those 25 players, eight of them must be ‘home-grown’. A home grown player is a player, of any nationality or age, that has spent 36 months registered with an English or Welsh club between the ages of 16 and 21.
So using those guidelines, and to highlight how those rules work in real life we need to find an example. How about Tim Krul? He is classed as a ‘home grown’ player, despite the fact he is from The Netherlands, as he has been registered with us since he was 18. He is now 22, but it is those three years between 18-21 that make him ‘home-grown’, and because he is over 21 he would need to be registered to be able to play.
The 25-man squads must be submitted to the Premier League by 5pm on the day following the close of each transfer window. For the 2010/11 season the first window will close at 6pm on 31st August and final squads must be registered by 5pm on 1st September. Before then, clubs will not be required to name their squads and may select their teams from any registered players.
There are exceptions to the rules though. If a squad doesn’t have eight ‘home-grown’ players then they can reduce their squad number by the same total. So if a club only has four ‘home-grown’ players then they can only register a squad of 21 names. Similarly, if you loan out one of your 25-man squad then they cannot be replaced and you must operate with a reduced squad.
Players under the age of 21 don’t count towards the 25-man squad rule. They don’t have to be named and can be played at any time. So using another example, Haris Vuckic can play in any game he is picked for as he doesn’t need to be registered due to his age.
Right, hopefully that clarifies the rules a little bit more. But how does that leave Newcastle? And are we currently operating within the rules? Let’s have a look.
Below is a list of players that I have spilt into categories. It’s pretty straight forward and covers which players are classed as ‘home-grown’ within our first-team squad.
Home grown players (over 21) – Steve Harper, Tim Krul, Fraser Forster, James Perch, Danny Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Mike Williamson, Steven Taylor, Wayne Routledge, Alan Smith, Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan, Danny Guthrie, Andy Carroll, Shola Ameobi, Leon Best.
That is 16 ‘home-grown’ players that would need to be named in our 25-man squad if they are to play for us. We can then supplement those players with the following ‘non home-grown’ players.
Non home-grown players (over 21) – Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Jonas Gutierrez, Xisco, Peter Lovenkrands.
So if you add those two lists together you end up with a squad of 21 registered players, which still leaves scope for recruitment. This next list contains players who are in our first-team squad but don’t need to be registered due to their age. These can play at any time.
Non registered players (under 21) – James Tavernier, Stephen Folan, Tamas Kadar, Shane Ferguson, Kazenga Lua Lua, Haris Vuckic, Brad Inman, Sam Adjei, Ryan Donaldson, Phil Airey, Nile Ranger.
So to summarise, we curently have 21 players in our squad that must be registered, and 16 of those are ‘home-grown’ so we have no worries there. We can also recruit another four players that would need to be registered, should Chris Hughton and Newcastle decide to do so. The under-21 players can step in at anytime without having to be either ‘home-grown’ or registered.
What does it mean for transfers? Well lets take our two most recently talked about targets, Dan Gosling and Sol Campbell, to use as an example. Gosling would easily slip into the under-21 category and wouldn’t need to be registered as he is only 20-years old. Sol Campbell would need to be registered in the squad of 25 though as he is 94-years old, but he would also add to our ‘home-grown’ quota in fairness.
Hope this helps!
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Good article, are there any PL clubs that will be screwed over with these new rules coming in and will have to buy home-grown players just to have them registered? Arsenal/Chelsea/City etc?