The Premier League Home-Grown Players Rule

There are two significant adverse effects of the home-grown players rule particularly at the highest level; 1) the artificial inflation of the value of domestic based players and 2) the earlier purchase of foreign youth players.

For those of you not accustom to the home-grown players rule it is a UEFA creation that has been implemented with only slight adaption for the Premier League. In a 25-man squad, 8 players must be ‘home grown’, this can be defined as a player (of any nationality) trained for 3 years by a club in the English or Welsh FA under the age of 21. The aim of it is as stated by Richard Scudamore of the Premier League is:

...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.

Intrinsically, there is a propensity for a home grown player to be English or Welsh, and therefore this requirement obviously increases the value of these players to Premier League clubs, artificially inflating the asset value of these typical domestic players against typical foreign ones. For this reason a club may be inclined to ensure they fulfill their quota of these ‘home grown players’ and as soon as achieved then change their transfer strategy entirely to foreign players to seek real value for money.

Interestingly, on implementation of this rule the Premier League club most affected, aka the club with the least amount of 'home grown players' already was Liverpool. Did they not recently spend £35m on Andy Carroll, £20m on Stewart Downing and £20m on Jordan Henderson? Were they redressing their balance in accordance with this rule? Does anyone else think these values may have been artificially inflated because of Liverpool’s need to adapt to the rule or is it a coincidence?

Also, anyone heavily involved in academy football, like Simply Sport is, can observe there has been no let up in the amount of foreign youth footballers joining Premier League academies. There is now an actual reason to buy a foreign player aged 16 or 17 than to continue to scout them and perhaps purchase them aged 20 – and that reason is if a club can sign him before he is 18 he could count as a ‘home-grown player’ when he turns 21. This will help that club fulfill its home grown quota in the future and also know that being a home grown player will add to his value in the future if and when they are to sell. Therefore there is more of an incentive to bring in foreign players at a younger age than ever before. 

Now, I’m not against the rule – I think it serves a purpose and it does force clubs to focus more on what they’re doing at youth level. However, I just wanted to use this blog to highlight the problems the rule can also create and that there should be open dialogue going forward as to how the rule could be adapted for improvement.  

Expect More of Your Agent

I often recall the thoughts I had whilst studying for my law master degree and pondering a career in sports management...

I envisaged a steady career ladder, where you’d apply to a sports agency, possibly gain the opportunity to become an intern or join on a graduate scheme. Alternatively at least, you’d start in the post room, or perhaps you’d shadow an established agent within the business and/or be an assistant to the agent for a while. In honesty, I was ready to graft and work my way up – mainly because I understood that’s how large sports, film agencies and so on in America operate so surely it’d be the same here in England??

I was wrong.

Quite unlike the maturity of the sports management company or agency in America, being a Sports Agent here in England appears typically to be more an occupation through manifestation, luck or opportunity – rather than an established career.

My first ‘job’ in sports was for an Australian company and whilst it was a superb opportunity in its own right, I had no training whatsoever and very little direction whilst there apart from access to contacts. Indeed, I’d go as far to say now after my years in the sport business in England, a stereotypical agent here is someone who merely has a few contacts in their phone, a car, gets to a few games picking up players and makes a few deals every month, large or small. This in comparison to how the large American sports management companies operate who move beyond just having a few contacts and players, to training their agents to be able to offer 360 degree advice from a legal perspective to a tax and financial perspective to nutritional and beyond. Now no one agent can be an expert in all, but training their agents to have a little bit of knowledge of all enables the agent to provide a better service – the type of service players should expect from their agent.

In essence, I believe it is time footballers and other sportspeople here in England and across Europe expect more from their agents. 

Football is the world’s number one sport and as a result you should expect a premium service from your agent, not just a wheeler dealer.

A move toward this type of ‘American professionalism’ as I call it, is a fundamental part of the strategy behind Simply Sport Management. There is an expectation that each and every person in this business continues to develop their broad spectrum of knowledge so that we can better advise our players. Likewise, it is why we are developing our collaboration with the Nottingham Law School so we can offer genuine internship and graduate opportunities to students. These will be genuine opportunities to see how we operate as a sports management company and whilst it is a grand vision as our company grows we hope we will be able to bring through a new generation of agents who are ultimately career agents. They have trained to do the best for you as a sportsperson – and they take pride in the total service. It’s exactly that ethos we have now and will install in all that operate for our company.

In conclusion, expect more from your agent, always ask them – what else can they do for you beyond just deal-making and boots?