New Premier League Rules

New Premier League Rules-An Article written by Rug, the Vital Pompey Editor

Each club will be required to have 8 ‘home-grown’ players in their squad of 25, and this squad can be no more than 25 unless those extras also in the squad are under 21.

Alterations can be made to the squad named, but only at the end of the summer and winter transfer windows, but these alterations must see this squad stay within the limits of no more than 17 players, out of the 25, over the age of 21 and not home-grown.

A player is defined as ‘home-grown’ if they have trained within the professional system in England or Wales for 3-years and are under the age of 21.

Chief executive Richard Scudamore, quoted on Sky Sports, believes this will make buying home-grown talent ‘more attractive’ with it acting as another incentive to ‘invest in youth’ that will ultimately ‘benefit’ the national side:

‘It’s not in the club’s interests to sIockpile players. It will make buying home-grown talent more attractive.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.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’

Also to be changed, and these changes come in immediately; will be the way clubs are run financially.

Clubs must follow guidelines set out that sees accounts submitted annually, which the Premier League board will then look at to ensure that each club can: ‘fulfil its fixtures, pay off its creditors when they are due and also to meet obligations to the Premier League’s contracts and partners?’

If these criteria are in danger or are not being met transfer embargos can be handed out along with the club agreeing a budget to work on – all is being done to ensure that each club is financially viable to sustain its existence essentially,Scudamore added:

‘It’s absolutely crucial that these clubs are run as ongoing viable concerns. These financial rules apply immediately.This is tied in, and we passed the rule during the summer, to a ‘fit and proper person test’. At our club meeting last week, the clubs absolutely endorsed our position of not linking expenditure to income’

These are changes to the top-flight game that are not going to do it any harm, are they?

Although there will now be even more attention paid to youngsters, or ‘home-grown’ players, which will then need the games governing bodies to pay extra attention to how clubs approach others – some flexing their muscles – to prise these assets away.A greater transparency on the financial score does not sound a bad idea to me at all though!

Written by Rug-Vital Portsmouth Editor

Clarets fans might also like to think about how these rules could affect Burnley FC. A squad size of 25 could actually help us if we remain in the top flight at the end of this season.

At the moment we have a squad size of 28 excluding the first year professional young guns but including the two loan players, Guerrero and Nugent. If we assume we eventually secure both the loan players on a permanent basis then we are going to be in about the right region anyway. Some players could also leave the club in the January transfer window or at the end of the season and certainly one, Remco van der Schaaf seems to have dropped off the radar already.

A lot of our rivals though won’t have their huge squads to call upon which could make the playing field a little bit more level for clubs like ours.

I think in general this will help the Clarets but it would be interesting to have your views on this article either below or in our forums.