FA Rules Aim To Boost New English Talent

FA chairman Greg Dyke has vowed to improve the prospects of English players by pushing through new rules that could bring him into conflict with Premier League clubs.

Speaking as the England squad gathered ahead of a Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania, Mr Dyke warned that the decline in the numbers of England-qualified players at the highest level will harm the national team.

He cited Tottenham Hotspur forward Harry Kane, called up by England manager Roy Hodgson for the first time, as a rare example of a player rising above imported talent.

"I think future England managers, unless we can stop this trend, and turn it, future England managers will have a problem. They will have fewer and fewer players to choose from," he said.

"Look at Harry Kane, almost by chance got himself into the Tottenham first team and is now the Premier League's top scorer. How many more Harry Kanes are there?"

Currently just 35% of Premier League starting sides are eligible for England, a number that reduces to 22% among the current top-four teams, and the trend has been consistently downwards since the Premier League was founded in 1992.

Mr Dyke announced two specific measures he hopes will "turn the tanker".

From next season new rules developed by the FA will make it harder for players from outside the European Union to get work permits, meaning that in theory there will be fewer "average" foreign players taking up places in Premier League squads.

He is also pressing for changes to the rules for "homegrown" players, and an increase in the quota that each club must include in its squad.

Under current rules a player has to have spent three years at an FA-affiliated club prior to their 21st birthday to be classified as "homegrown".

Mr Dyke wants to reduce the age to 18, and increase the number of homegrown players in each Premier League squad of 25 from eight to 12.

This is likely to meet resistance from Premier League clubs, who want the freedom to buy the best talent from around the world.

With their latest television deal worth a record £5bn they have more firepower to compete with their European rivals than ever.

Mr Dyke said he hopes they will resist the urge to buy from abroad.

"One of our concerns is that there does seem to be a correlation between the amount of television money going into football and the number of foreign players. It is important that doesn't happen again, we have got to stop this and reverse it," he said.

"The national side basically comes from the top clubs, and if you look at the number playing in the Champions League, the number of English players playing in CL is 20-odd, look at the number of German, Spanish, Brazilian players is double that.

"It's a problem that we have to address if we are going to have any chance of winning the World Cup in years to come."

Mr Dyke believes recent results in Europe, which saw all English teams eliminated from the Champions League before the quarter-final stage, prove the current reliance on overseas talent is not working.

"We now have a situation where there are no English clubs in the Champions League quarter-finals for the second time in three years, so while there's no question the Premier League is the most successful and competitive league in the world, it is not necessarily the best sides.

"And at it's crudest we would like to see more Harry Kane's playing in the Premier League."