It appears that Greg Dyke, head of the FA, governing body of English football, has persuaded the government to approve new rules on work permits for foreign players. This includes requiring foreign players to come from more successful football nations (according the FIFA rankings) and requiring them to have played more games for their national team. He also wants to persuade the Premier League to field a larger share of “home grown” players – a rule which is biased in favour of players from the home country and which arguably contravenes EU law on the free movement of labour.
The motivation for this protectionism is to improve the quality of the national team. I will make two predictions right now:
- It won’t reduce the percentage of foreign players in the EPL
- It won’t improve the performance of the national team
The first point is something I alluded to last week- the massive increase in EPL broadcast rights income and the appreciation of sterling will send EPL clubs out on a major international spending spree over the next couple of years – so that even if the quality standard is raised, the EPL clubs can still afford to buy more top talent.
But this also won’t help the national team. As we explain in Soccernomics, English players benefit from pitting themselves against the best players in the world- and the fact that they make up about one third of the league means that the England manager has around 100 EPL players to choose from- this ought to be enough to produce a competitive team. In fact, my take on the data is that the EPL has made the England team better.
We also say in Soccernomics that it’s not clear that you should expect the England team to do much better anyway- the overperformance countries like Germany and Italy is what is interesting, not the alleged underperformance of England. But if you do think England should do better there are two smoking guns in my view:
(i) Youth development- facilities for youth training and development across the country are poor. All the billions of the EPL would not solve this- it’s a problem to do with years of neglect by government. A country like Germany has always had a substantial government funded support system for local club sports aimed at local communities (even if they too now face funding problems).
(ii) English players hardly ever go abroad. Despite the international profile of the EPL, English players failing to get into the top teams in England seldom try to prove themselves abroad – which is what players from most other countries do. If you’re almost good enough for the EPL, then you probably are good enough for the Dutch league, the French league, the Belgian league. More international experience of this kind would have long term benefits for the English game. The FA should provide scholarships for English players to gain overseas experience, to open their minds to these possibilities.
The policy of isolationism when faced with strong foreign competition almost never works. It might help boost the profitability of the EPL clubs, since they won’t have to compete as much for foreign talent, but that will not make English players better. What is needed is a more international outlook from young English players.
My major concern, and I think you’ve touched on it too, is that Greg Dyke has never provided any evidence of any of the problems he says exists, or that any of solutions he proposes will work. He’s never demonstrated he has identified the problem, apart from this anecdotal evidence that lacks specificity and does not stand up to much scrutiny. It’s fairly dangerous. Obviously, we can’t know what he said to the government to persuade them to accept these new quotas, but if it resembles the report he published on the national game then it’s hard to believe he came up with anything concrete.
Regarding your two smoking guns, I agree with the first, as a football coach myself. The second point is true also but I think more work does go into English players playing abroad than you think, but not for the reasons you rightly suggest.
Many lower league clubs in England have relationships with clubs in Iceland, Sweden, and Hungary, for example. Walsall send a lot of their players to Iceland two or three times a year on loan. Liverpool have clubs in Hungary to loan players too. Manchester United used to send players out to Belgium. These may be exceptions however, as opposed to the norm, but young players do have the opportunity to go abroad to play football. I think it’s just a simple financial incentive really – you get paid a lot more money to play in England, even if it is on the bench.
Interesting comments. I agree on the financial point – it may just be easier to make living in the Championship than moving abroad. But I think with encouragement more might choose to broaden their horizons.
Agree with all that, especially the point about our players not playing abroad. Compare the many German, Brazilian, Argentinian, even Spanish players who do (although Italy is also an exception here). What I find even more curious is how Manchester City and Arsenal, teams with mostly foreign players and foreign managers, still played like little Englanders in the Champions League last week. It almost suggests that the style of the EPL remains relatively immune to the foreign influx and ends up infecting even the foreign players.
I very much agree with you when you say that very few English players are leaving the UK to play abroad. In your book Soccernomics (correct me if i’m wrong) you mentioned that the EPL is becoming too competitive compared to the other Big Five leagues across Europe, which in the long run is most probably having an effect on the National Teams performance.
The current system in the UK works fine, I do not agree with the new policies put forward by Dyke. If you look at a club like Southampton (or on a National Scale a Country like Iceland) who’s club philosophy is to believe in their own academy in order to have a sustainable club. Heavily investing in foreign talent, according to me is not a long term sustainable possibility for the vast majority of the clubs. The FA should thus promote other means and policies which would ensure top facilities and training centers all around the UK for all clubs at ALL levels.
Very interesting article but I disagree with one statement:
“It might help boost the profitability of the EPL clubs, since they won’t have to compete as much for foreign talent, but that will not make English players better.”
We already see an over-inflation in the value of English players in the league which may be due to the home-grown rules. If the new legislation comes in, then the size of the market will decrease further and the value of English players (and League-legible players for that matter) consequently increases.
Purely from an economic perspective, wages are the biggest outlay at most, if not all clubs, and I have a feeling that due to factors like the new TV deals and the work permit rules, this will lead to increased wage inflation in the on-going, “wage warfare,” between Premier League clubs.
So my view is that the policy amounts to a restriction of competition among buyers in the labour market- which you would expect to undermine the bargaining power of sellers. The biggest impact is obviously on those who are excluded from the market- they now have no power to bargain in the EPL. As you rightly point out, this will lead to intensified competition for the services of the remaining sellers – so bidding up the price of English players. I haven’t seen the response of the PFA, but they probably supported this since it is good for the bargaining power of their members.However, I don’t think this is just a transfer of wages from those who would have been eligible to play in the EPL to those who remain eligible- I think it will also reduce competition among the clubs, enabling them to make larger profits. I think this is a bad thing- I think “wage warfare” is a good thing.