Recently I have been reading a lot of articles, quoting various people involved in the game both in England and Europe, regarding quotas on the number of foreigners allowed per team in domestic leagues.

I realise that quotas on players from member nations are currently illegal in the EU, and that the EPL does have a quota on foreigners from outside the EU, 3 per team.

Now one issue that hasn't been discussed, at least that I know of, is that of "A Global Perspective". What I mean is that in the age of Globalisation, are quotas on non EU players fair or just? At some point the planet Earth will become a true Global Community so why not get a jump on the rest of the world and end all quotas. Impracticable? probably.

What I am getting at is how can you justify quotas in one area and not another.

O.K. getting to the point.

Sooner or later, and I believe sooner, quotas will be brought into domestic leagues, governing the number of foreigners allowed per team. I believ 6 per team is the widely accepted number. And that is six total, not starting I believe.

Why? Becuase so many influential people within the European game are advocating it, and one article I read suggests that the issue is seriously being reviewed by the legal people from the EU comission.

What impact will a succesful outcome have for the domestic game.

O.K. it won't impact immediately as teams will probably be given something like a three year period to get their squads in order. But it will be the teams that are ruthless and re-act immediately that will benefit first. And will we need the 3 non-EU quota anymore?

Firstly in regards to England, will the EU recognise players from the other "home countries" as foreign or local. This will have a large impact as currently many fans do not distinguish between English and Welsh, Irish etc players when lamenting the number of foreigners in their league or team. Go on do you seriously think or Given, Speed, Hughes or Dunc as foriegn? Maybe Speed.

Secondly, an even greater premium will be placed on talented, English, youngsters. I believe the EPL governing bodies move to controlling teams catchment areas has a two fold effect. One, that they are trying to ensure smaller clubs have a means of financial survival as they can protect their kids (read investment) and get a nice financial settlement from tribunal if manu, arse etc don't pay straight up. Two, the EPL is backing and believes we will get a quota on foriegn players. The restrictions on catchment areas tied into a youngsters age, hopefully will ensure that manu and arse won't dominate the local game as they gobble up all the best talent. Jermaine Peneant, Cherno Samba

The transfer fees for both local and foreign player will likely go up even more//faster. Top local players will have premium prices on their heads as per usual. However as clubs have to have more home players in their squads, the mid range talent players will also become a hot item. I'll cover foriegn transfers a bit later.

The top teams, read filthy rich, will dominate the game as they can load up on the best local and foreign talent. Teams with succesful youth academies might climb in the standings if they can hold onto their youngsters. If there wasn't a serious threat of the EU allowing quotas, I don't think teams like manu and arse would be paying millions for 15/16 year olds. Also why are Leeds ready to outlay much of their large transfer kitty on local players, when they have the financial clout to be a major player in the European transfer merry-go-round. O'Leary has around 40 million pounds that he has sat on all season. Do the top teams see it coming?

What does it mean for Europe.

The top domestic leagues; Italy, Spain, England, Germany and France, will try and get any of their top players in other leagues back home. So Chelsea's retirement lodge might become deserted.

Top EU players outside the top three nations, and then top five, will become even more expensive. Their home leagues still won't be able to compete financially, so the Van Nistelrooy's of the future will be worth even more as only the best of the best will be sought after. The same applies to non-european players. Just think, that only 336 foreigners will be allowed in to play in Italy, Spain and England. Where do all the Dutch players go if they can't all play at Barcelona? the same goes for the Danes, Swedes, Portugese, Norwegians, Czechs, Romainians ,Russians, players from former Soviet states, Argentina, Brazil, etc. And don't think that France or Germany will be able to hold onto all their top players.

What does it mean for NUFC?

We had better get our youth team producing a production line. Seriously we will need some really good scouts, become a serious competitor in buying children (hey that's what the game will be about). Spend some serious cash on the youth teams facilities and set-ups. Arse spent three years researching the top youth academies around the world before they designed their own, and that went beyound what the facilities they looked at. Personally I'd want to know how West Ham, Leeds, Ipswich and Peterborough operate as their academies seem to be doing really well.

Secondly, devise a long term srategic plan in relation to targeting foreigners, when to buy and when to sell them. Will it be worth having a 19 year old Argentinian playing in the reserves for half a season, and possibly longer, if that means we only have 5 foreigners in the senior squad.

From our current foreigners, who do we keep? Nobby, Domi, Helder, Dabizas?. Shay, Dunc or Speed?.

Who would be our current foundation players? Harper, Barton(32), Howey(28), Griffin, Dyer, Lee(34), Shearer(29)???. Green, Kerr, Chopra, and we don't know if they can play in the EPL yet. Remember from a squad of around 30, 24 have to be English.

The team who wins the EPL in future will be the team with the best and deepest english players. Leeds anyone? So to the likely winners of the European Comps.

Tre

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000

Answers

just puuting it here.

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

Habe you not got anything better to do ?!!

Previously when there was a ban on non-home players playing in Europe it did count Scottish as non-home. This meant Man U struggled badly and had ot choose carefully. They famously didn't pick Schmeicel cos they needed Cantona, or something like that, and got stuffed as the stand-in blew it. There was a slight work around in that player brought through the ranks were counted as home grown, even if they were Welsh (and didn't then even play international friendlies).

Following this thro to the near future it would mean that if we have an Irish kid, like Hughes say, then he would count as home based as he had been with us for ever. Gavilan wouldn't though, although I'm not 100% sure of age limits etc.

My understanding was the the EU were talking about giving FAs the option of introducing rules into their countiries restricting numbers if they so wished.

As for transfer prices, the English players will go back to having a huge premium on them. This happened in Scotland in the early 90s when Rangers just bought everyon ewho was any good, and ended up paying #4m for Big Dunc, when he really wasn't worth it. There is some argument about it at least keeping domestic money within the country. I think the price of foriegners won't rise as much. If there are only 6 per team then you will be very careful who you choose. In Sunderland's case they will look around for a bargain, similarly the likes of Derby, Leicester etc. This is no different to now. At th etop Man U are still lokking for Batistutas/Rivaldos and competing with Barca/Inter rather than Nunez and competing with, well nobody really. So I'm not sure it changes at all.

Better youth schemes are the key. The thing is everybody knows this. Rangers were talking about it yesterday, Murray goes on about it, everybody knows it. How does this help then ? We have to have the best, and we have to produce the best. I just don't know whether the UK can now produce the level of player we see from other countries, and I'm not sure Newcastle's academy wil be any better then anyone else's.

I think I'm saying that I'm not sure anything will change, plus ca change plus c'est meme chose, or some French bollx I can't remember

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

No!

Well I had a lot of "better" things to do, but was going insane doing them. Look it's friday here, I have an 8am start at uni, goes through till 11am, then a six hour break, then a 5pm lecture that goes through till 8pm. I worked last night and am absolutely buggered. I'm sitting here in the lecture on my friends laptop keeping myself awake as this must be the 10th time in four years I've had a lecture on Inclusive Education.

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

some interesting points there Tre! Havent u got more important things to do like studying???? OK i agree, NUFC is more important ;-)

When all is said and done do we really want teams like Chelsea played with recently, none of which were from UK? YES we want to be entertained by the best footballers we can buy, YES we love the good foreign players who pull on our shirts and say nice things about the club.....

For the good of football in the UK as a whole, a limit of non-UK(as opposed to non-English in my view) has got to be sorted out sooner rather than later.

Im proud in this respect about NUFC. I think weve got the perfect mix of homegrown and foreign. Worrying though that YBR will almost certainly go for a foreign 'buzzing' central midfielder this summer rather than go for the 'not so brilliant but better than Speed/Lee UK midfielder' i.e. Hutchinson (who no doubt wud snap up the opportunity)

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000