Time the F.A sorted this out

[gazingdown]

Nice rant but are you aware of the way kids are playing football now? Do you honestly believe that kids of 9 and 10 are playing on full size pitches. Look at the FA website and read up about it. Changes have been made but will not affect the current crop of professional footballers. It will need to filter through as the kids of today grow up.

Fair enough (and good news) that it's actually happening (finally!). Will be a fair while before we reap the benefits of this but we'll simply have to wait (and hope it develops properly).

 

[father_and_son]

Granted. Teams can employ 50 foreign players if they want, but why not only allow 3 to play in the match day squad

In respect of EU citizens...
Not if there are bonuses to their based on playing/scoring/clean sheets/etc. This would be considered discrimination. You cannot restrict someone's ability to be paid an employment related bonus based on their nationality!

You would have to remove ALL incentives from the players' wage structure to even consider this. If you did I would still bet on a tribunal to declare it discriminatory because you are inhibiting the chance of "promotion" or other employment opportunities in a discriminatory fashion because without game time their transfer value would reduce.

The ONLY solution is to have the English game apply for an exception to the EU Directive or for the UK to withdraw from the EU and thus remove the obligation.

Given that we are the country most international players want to play in, retrospectively applying this restriction would be unpopular with other EU countries as it would penalise their citizens (and their own national squad - would be like turkeys voting for christmas!). Added to this, as all the PL teams and many lower division teams have huge amounts of money invested in foreign players, they would never allow the FA to even make the application!

 

[El Presidente]

The Netherlands has a population 1/4 of ours, Uruguay 1/20.

But if you go to the Netherlands and see how they develop youth football, you'll see why they are a success. Every village has it's own teams, with proper clubhouses, pitches and artificial grass training facilities.

Our kids get council parks full of dogshit and needles, coaching from enthusiastic amateurs and parents who scream abuse who feed them Pringles and Coke at half time.

 

[Simster]

The same thing happens after every failure at every tournament, nothing changes and this time will be no different.
The fact we have the FA, the premier league and the football league all with vested interests make it impossible to implement any changes.

Correct. And that is why the government needs to intervene. Britain is a football mad nation, and all of them under-achieve. The FA is not fit for purpose IMO.

 

[El Presidente]

Correct. And that is why the government needs to intervene. Britain is a football mad nation, and all of them under-achieve. The FA is not fit for purpose IMO.

Agreed, but neither is the government. Can you imagine if Michael Gove was put in charge of football? We'd have lace up football and moustaches would be compulsory on all players.

 

[Simster]

Agreed, but neither is the government. Can you imagine if Michael Gove was put in charge of football? We'd have lace up football and moustaches would be compulsory on all players.

But at least the government is accountable. If we decide Dyke is doing a shit job, how do we get rid of him?

 

[BigGully]

The Netherlands has a population 1/4 of ours, Uruguay 1/20.

But if you go to the Netherlands and see how they develop youth football, you'll see why they are a success. Every village has it's own teams, with proper clubhouses, pitches and artificial grass training facilities.

Our kids get council parks full of dogshit and needles, coaching from enthusiastic amateurs and parents who scream abuse who feed them Pringles and Coke at half time.

Aren't the Academy's sucking out the best youngsters from the age of 6 and plonking them inside shiny new buildings, on baise quality pitches and accessing top level coaches and nutritious post match meals, I am all for better local amenities but I am not sure this is the main problem.

 

[Meade's Ball]

No, it's time to review the grass roots and kids coaching standards to ensure that kids are being taught better and that those standards carry on right the way through the professional game.

Surely the idea should be to bring young English players up to the standard of foreign ones, not remove the foreigners so that English players have less competition for places and so can stroll into teams that they would otherwise not be good enough for?

I hope youngsters are given that perfect blend of enjoyment and intelligence to come and through and understand movements and systems and positions naturally then through adulthood so almost no matter their outrageous skill level they'll still be able to control a game in spells without panic or despair. I doubt this will come into being as we are what we are and won't simply change character throughout a nation. But it would be good to begin teaching young players to perhaps coach as much as play. That should mean comfort in so many formations and the tactical nous to know when to make runs an IQ level or two above those in opposite colours.
We always just seem a bit dumb, and unknowing of each other.

 

[father_and_son]

Agreed, but neither is the government. Can you imagine if Michael Gove was put in charge of football? We'd have lace up football and moustaches would be compulsory on all players.

Back to the good old days you mean! Players should have to wear hob-nailed boots too!

 

[Ernest]

Nothing will change, too many vested interests involved to advocate change

 

[El Presidente]

Aren't the Academy's sucking out the best youngsters from the age of 6 and plonking them inside shiny new buildings, on baise quality pitches and accessing top level coaches and nutritious post match meals, I am all for better local amenities but I am not sure this is the main problem.

If you don't have the coaching structure you don't know who the best kids are though.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I hope youngsters are given that perfect blend of enjoyment and intelligence to come and through and understand movements and systems and positions naturally then through adulthood so almost no matter their outrageous skill level they'll still be able to control a game in spells without panic or despair. I doubt this will come into being as we are what we are and won't simply change character throughout a nation. But it would be good to begin teaching young players to perhaps coach as much as play. That should mean comfort in so many formations and the tactical nous to know when to make runs an IQ level or two above those in opposite colours.
We always just seem a bit dumb, and unknowing of each other.

Very good points.

As has been posted there's a great difference in this country to others in the ratio of qualified coaches to players. Coaching youngster as I do you become very aware of who takes on board your teachings and who, as long as they live and breathe, will never appreciate the "reading" of the game. This appears to apply to even the top english players. How many times have you seen limited skilled players carve out a career due to the fact they are able to read the game. Brian Horton comes to mind.

The top footballing nations appear to have highly skilled players who also appreciate the finer details. Our national team look lost at times. Anyone who watched the recent U20's tournament witnessed an English team bereft of a leader on the pitch. These players maybe young but have all been within the professional game for sometime. They however lack the knowledge, the where with all, to dictate or control the situation around them.

We as a nation have a problem with developing our home grown players. This stems from a number of reason imo. Firstly we compete on a number of levels in various sports which other nations do not. We are "supposedly" one of the best in cricket, rugby, football, hockey and so on. We are a small nation, and our league traditionally supports five national teams, Eire, N Ireland, Scotland, Wales and finally England. This alone with the imported players throughout the league structure it's no wonder we struggle.

Foreign owned clubs with under presser foreign managers adds another problem.

This is all without grass root problems which I will come to later.

 

[Kaiser_Soze]

they impose quotas on the number of local players in the side. here we do the same with minimum "home grown" players (might even be a Champiosn League rule too), but theres an implicit work around with how long a player has been in the country allows them to qualify. only difference as far as i can tell is the Germans and Spanish dont fill their acedemies with foriegn kids, while ours do. (there in lies the real problem). a sporting organisation restricting nationals in a team is not a company preventing a EU worker from employment. first the rule comes from outside the company and secondly they can still employ as many spanish as they like, just only field a certain number.

Not strictly true. If you looked at the Barcelona academy for instance, they will have a hell of a lot of non Spanish kids. Messi came to the Nou Camp as a 9 year old and the player that was involved in their transfer embargo was also signed from foreign shores.

As has already been mentioned, players replicating club form on the international stage is equally a problem. We often fail to do this. This year however, Spain also failed. We aren't the only country with problems. France were humbled in the last WC too.

 

[BobbySmith]

I think the main problem is clubs like Chelsea and Man City, who spend millions on their Academy, then do not put any young players in their squads and teams and continue with their policy of buying expensive Jonny Foreigner's. How are we supposed to produce young good British players, when they have to go down the leagues and end up in 'lower' standard football. Only a very few make it and even fewer get brought back into the Premiership. Germany sorted out their system a few years back and now look at them. What is the answer, not sure, but maybe ensure that Prem squads have to have say 6 players that are home grown, although I am sure the likes of Chelsea and Man City, will find a way around it. Last night was very poor, no real technique and beaten by an average team, with only one real world class player. Think we should start all over again, with a new manager and new squad for the Euros, get rid of the old ones and try with some of the new players. Rant over

 

[virtual22]

Aren't the Academy's sucking out the best youngsters from the age of 6 and plonking them inside shiny new buildings, on baise quality pitches and accessing top level coaches and nutritious post match meals, I am all for better local amenities but I am not sure this is the main problem.

Correct, we have lost 4 or 5 kids from my Son's under 10's team already. Good for them and we are all chuffed to bits and really hope they make it, not great for us though having to find new players every year.

 

[drew]

This is true. There are changes at grass roots. However, young children are still being taught by Level 1 dads and mums who cannot help but get drawn into competitive coaching techniques and team selections. Yet, the really talented kids are usually identified and put up for trials at local centres of excellence. The real problem at the elite level is that clubs talent hoard. Chelsea being a particularly bad example. If the FA stop buggering about with B-Leagues and set out to develop another 6/12000 elite coaches for distribution throughout the game - all the way down to grass roots, then we may see some real progress.

But you can't just click your fingers and another 20,000 coaches suddenly appear! Part of the remit of St Georges is to train coaches. Yes, level 1 dads and mums are helping out (unpaid) but that wasn't always the case. When the training of coaches filters down, the next step will be to ensure those level 1 coaches are then level 2. It isn't going to happen overnight but half the posters on this thread seem to expect it to.

 

[Cian]

Granted. Teams can employ 50 foreign players if they want, but why not only allow 3 to play in the match day squad

Still completely illegal.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

But the teams who created the PL said it would benefit the English game playing along side world class players week in and week out!

 

[Brian Fantana]

We need to start encouraging more of our young players to go and experience playing abroad. It would help them grow up off the pitch as much as it would help them develop on it.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I think the main problem is clubs like Chelsea and Man City, who spend millions on their Academy, then do not put any young players in their squads and teams and continue with their policy of buying expensive Jonny Foreigner's. How are we supposed to produce young good British players, when they have to go down the leagues and end up in 'lower' standard football. Only a very few make it and even fewer get brought back into the Premiership. Germany sorted out their system a few years back and now look at them. What is the answer, not sure, but maybe ensure that Prem squads have to have say 6 players that are home grown, although I am sure the likes of Chelsea and Man City, will find a way around it. Last night was very poor, no real technique and beaten by an average team, with only one real world class player. Think we should start all over again, with a new manager and new squad for the Euros, get rid of the old ones and try with some of the new players. Rant over

Your first point is spot on.

We could circumnavigate the rules on restrictions by simply sponsoring teams that play more English players.

Money talks in the Premiership, the majority are not interested in winning but coming fourth just to get more revenue. How about a FA sponsored (money via a good old English business, if there is one!) that any club who fields on average more than 50% English players through the season receives a bonus of £30 million. It may appeal to the Everton's of this World. It will not however restrict anyone who wants to "buy" the Premiership with jolly foreigners.

The same could apply to English players in the academies, each player is subsidised by the fa. These subsidies are to be financed by a levy placed on all clubs.