If you want to read the full proposal, look here, but I'll just give you the highlights. The headline suggestion is that instead of the eight players currently required to be "home-grown", there will need to be 12, meaning that by 2020, the Premier League will be made up of a minimum 45 per cent of English players. There is also a change to the definition of "home-grown". Rather than the three years that a player must have been registered with the club before his 21st birthday, Dyke wants the three years to have been served before a player's 18th, ensuring that young talent continues to be nurtured by English clubs, instead of simply buying it in. Finally, he included a new requirement that two of these "home-grown' players must have been trained by their current club, meaning that all clubs have to place emphasis on their youth programmes.
So, should this come into operation today, how would this affect the current squads? Having looked at the sides registered by our top flight clubs after the September transfer window, I've outlined the amount of English players in each of their squads below:
| Club | Players | Home grown (%) |
| Arsenal | 8/23 | 35% |
| Aston Villa | 16/25 | 64% |
| Burnley | 18/24 | 75% |
| Chelsea | 3/20 | 15% |
| Crystal Palace | 15/25 | 60% |
| Everton | 8/25 | 32% |
| Hull City | 13/25 | 52% |
| Leicester City | 17/24 | 71% |
| Liverpool | 9/19 | 47% |
| Manchester City | 8/24 | 33% |
| Manchester United | 12/24 | 50% |
| Newcastle United | 9/25 | 36% |
| Queens Park Rangers | 19/25 | 76% |
| Southampton | 9/20 | 45% |
| Stoke City | 12/25 | 48% |
| Sunderland | 12/21 | 57% |
| Swansea City | 12/25 | 48% |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 6/23 | 26% |
| West Bromwich Albion | 10/23 | 43% |
| West Ham United | 14/24 | 58% |
| Total | 230/469 | 49% |
Now, it's important to remember that this does not include the currently defined 'U-21s', who do not require registration. This may seem irrelevant, but it's worth noting that the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Hector Bellerin and Harry Kane all fit into that bracket, and would all require registration under the new regulations. This may naturally boost the numbers of English players in the Premier League, but it's worth noting that there are only 11 of the 20 sides in the Premier League that would currently satisfy the proposals.
There is also a more significant trend. As we get further and further up the table, the percentage of English players gets less and less. The sides that would currently satisfy the new regulations sit in the following positions: 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th. With most of these sitting in the bottom half of the table, does this not just suggest that the best players (i.e. the ones that win titles) are not English?
With this not currently being the case, how do we breed the next generation of footballer, and even more so, encourage them to be successful? All of these new regulations may be completely irrelevant if our youth system does not produce the quality of English player we require to be competitive agains the likes of Spain, Germany and Brazil?
So maybe it's more pertinent to consider the national make-up of our youth sides, as this will give a better representation of the impact of these new regulations. As with the first team, I've listed the English contingent below:
| Club | Players | Home grown (%) |
| Arsenal | 16/22 | 73% |
| Aston Villa | 13/18 | 72% |
| Burnley | 17/27 | 62% |
| Chelsea | 20/27 | 74% |
| Crystal Palace | 17/17 | 100% |
| Everton | 22/29 | 76% |
| Hull City | 32/33 | 97% |
| Leicester City | 15/21 | 71% |
| Liverpool | 9/16 | 56% |
| Manchester City | 14/29 | 48% |
| Manchester United | 24/28 | 86% |
| Newcastle United | 26/34 | 76% |
| Queens Park Rangers | 7/14 | 50% |
| Southampton | 15/19 | 79% |
| Stoke City | 14/20 | 70% |
| Sunderland | 22/30 | 73% |
| Swansea City | 24/30 | 80% |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 16/22 | 73% |
| West Bromwich Albion | ||
| West Ham United | 16/24 | 67% |
| Total | 339/438 | 77% |
With the exception of West Brom, whose youth side I could not find, all bar Manchester City have youth sides with at least 50 per cent home grown players, giving rise to the hope that greater regulations around minimum English quotas will make a significant difference. This, coupled with the kind of investment that the likes of City are putting into their youth setups, shows that youth football has become a priority, and with English talent currently dominating the academies up and down the land, it looks like a positive step.
Another recent event that may significantly impact the way that our youth development works is the recent enormous rise in TV rights for the Premier League clubs. With clubs now set to receive a significant pay packet, there will be more to invest on our younger talent. However, the growth in funding for Premier League clubs inevitably inhibits the lower league sides from producing their own players. The likes of Wilfried Zaha, Scott Sinclair and Will Hughes, who came through the Championship youth system are likely to become less and less frequent, as the bigger clubs continue to steal the best talent. Though the Premier League points to the £1bn that the lower league clubs will share from 2016, it is worth pointing out that despite a rise of 70 per cent in overall TV rights fees, the lower leagues have only seen a 30 per cent rise in their cut - maybe not so generous after all?
However, will these make any significant difference to the national team? Or even the performance of our clubs in Europe, as outlined in my previous article? Well, in terms of the national team, it will inevitably help us produce a greater calibre of player, and more consistently. However, it is perhaps our own arrogance that makes us believe that we are in the same bracket as Spain and Germany when it comes to creating players. We are typically impatient, meaning that players are not given the chance to develop when it comes to the national team, and often to their downfall.
Ultimately, we need to accept that we are not good enough when it comes to football. We may have created the game, but we are no longer the kings of it. As a result, just 23 English players played Champions League football last year, compared to 76 from Spain, 51 from Germany and 55 from Brazil. We would be naive to think that we can change that substantially overnight, but it is certainly true that we can bolster those numbers, so perhaps a quota of English players is a good first step.
But now I'm going to be facetious and use a political argument (the election is just a matter of weeks away!). Can you imagine any other industry in the country proposing this? And further still, it being widely accepted? If I turned round and made a public comment that 'XX sector should reserve 50 per cent of English jobs for English people', I'd be signed up to the BNP and ostracised by practically everyone else! But chuck in a ball and a net, and people are falling over one another to support what may otherwise be branded as racist and discriminatory!
Ok, back to the serious argument. I do support the ideas to an extent, though I do suspect it will have a negative impact on the quality of the Premier League. However, this may not be a bad thing when it comes to competing in Europe. Let me explain why. A lower quality Premier League means lower TV rights and prize money for domestic competition. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it is this financial disparity between the Premier League and the Champions League that may have a detrimental impact on the performance of English sides, even if only subconsciously. This proposal may make Europe a larger priority, and we may at last return to seeing English clubs in the latter stages.
This argument is strengthened by the announcement made by UEFA last week. Clearly Michel Platini had been reading my blog too (or so I'd like to think!), as both of the major competitions in have raised their prize money for competitors. For the Champions League sides, all will now share £872m - up from £696m - or an average of £8.7m each, which represents a 38 per cent increase. In the Europa League, it is an even bigger jump, nearly doubling from £972,000 to £1.7m per team. With Europe offering a larger financial reward, and the potential for the domestic game to lower its rewards, could we begin to see a greater emphasis placed on these competitions?
In terms of the national side, I think there is a better alternative to the quotas. In most of the top European nations, leading sides are allowed to submit 'B' teams, who compete at a slightly lower level. These are not like reserve team games, as they are extremely competitive and against teams that are seeking promotion, and offer younger players some game time in conditions similar to those of the normal team. This has seen the likes of Xavi and Iniesta come through the ranks at Barcelona, and was part of the reason for the recent success of the German national side. As such, I would look to implement such as system in England, possibly around Conference level.
The ideas presented by Greg Dyke are not bad ones, and certainly have their advantages when it comes to European competition, but if we're expecting us to take the world stage by storm in the next few years, then we're deluded. It will be a long, slow process to take England back towards the top, but maybe this is a good first step.
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