New Foreign Player Rules - A Big Deal For Markham

[GhostoftheBok]

English football has agreed a deal whereby clubs can now sign a certain number of players without meeting the usual work permit criteria. In exchange clubs will have to meet set requirements regarding youth development and the production of players for the national team.

As things stand teams in the top two leagues will be able to register 4 foreign players without recourse to the usual work permit rules, while clubs in the bottom two leagues will be able to register 2.

These new rules have come into effect immediately.

Evatt and Markham have been desperate to work in the European market and there has been contact with agents and clubs in Europe for some time. Markham has a history of working in the German market and this will be huge for them. Evatt spoke about the attraction of signing players from Europe if we got promoted and those players they have been tracking in Europe could now be signed under the new rules. Previously it was only really possible to attract the kinds of players who would get work permits to the top two divisions and some other players would only get approved if they were seen as moving to an "elite" level.

Whether that alters any plans for this window I've no idea, as the openness of this agreement has come as a bit of a shock to a lot of people in the game. Equally, whilst some people predicted the WP rules would be liberalised, I'm not aware of anyone who thought it'd come into force immediately.

This means that players from clubs like Arminia Bielefeld (newly relegated to the German third tier) are in play. As are players from the Far East, South America etc. There are a lot of leagues where English money would go a long way and the data from those divisions is as readily available as it would be from any English league.

Game on, Mr Markham.

[Worthy4England]

Well, tell them to get their fingers out. Window has Benn open a day. And nowt, so far!

[The_Gun]

Presumably Dad Bod wouldn’t count towards our quota given he’s a regular at international level?

[The_Gun]

Can’t see news of this reported anywhere, btw.

[brommers95]

Presumably Dad Bod wouldn’t count towards our quota given he’s a regular at international level?

He’s not affected by these rules as he was already playing in England when the original rules were introduced.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Can’t see news of this reported anywhere, btw.

Oh it's definitely A Thing.
https://www.thefa.com/news/2023/jun/14/ ... ria-140623 - announcement
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... eason.html - Daily Mail
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/s ... fer-boost/ - typical local-press reaction

[boltonboris]

Widens the search for a new Keeper!

[Prufrock]

Worth bearing in mind part of the reason you always had fewer players in the lower leagues is that the money is a lesser degree of "change your life enough to justify moving abroad".

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Worth bearing in mind part of the reason you always had fewer players in the lower leagues is that the money is a lesser degree of "change your life enough to justify moving abroad".

Yes and no. A lot of us (including me and thee) are economic migrants; after that, it’s a question of where we think offers the best opportunity. So while BWFC may not be able to tempt Belgian Bob, we may be able to tap leagues that have previously served as traders’ markets with large volumes of transient incomers trying to prove themselves to the top leagues- eg Brazilians in Portugal, all manner of Africans in Ukraine/Russia (before the war).

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah I think this is pretty significant.

Now we can sign all those unheard of foreign sounding named players who lets face it are always much better than unheard of English sounding named players. At least until August...

In all seriousness I think this is a big help.

[sonicthewhite]

Worth bearing in mind part of the reason you always had fewer players in the lower leagues is that the money is a lesser degree of "change your life enough to justify moving abroad".

Yes and no. A lot of us (including me and thee) are economic migrants; after that, it’s a question of where we think offers the best opportunity. So while BWFC may not be able to tempt Belgian Bob, we may be able to tap leagues that have previously served as traders’ markets with large volumes of transient incomers trying to prove themselves to the top leagues- eg Brazilians in Portugal, all manner of Africans in Ukraine/Russia (before the war).

Belgian Bob sounds like a good signing. Is he a RWB?

[The_Gun]

Yeah I think this is pretty significant.

Now we can sign all those unheard of foreign sounding named players who lets face it are always much better than unheard of English sounding named players. At least until August...

In all seriousness I think this is a big help.

Aye, the reality in the recent past has been that clubs like ours have been fishing in a relatively small pool. There are only so many good players in the lower leagues of the UK and Ireland, so this development should be a big help to those with decent recruitment teams (which hopefully includes us).

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah I think this is pretty significant.

Now we can sign all those unheard of foreign sounding named players who lets face it are always much better than unheard of English sounding named players. At least until August...

In all seriousness I think this is a big help.

Aye, the reality in the recent past has been that clubs like ours have been fishing in a relatively small pool. There are only so many good players in the lower leagues of the UK and Ireland, so this development should be a big help to those with decent recruitment teams (which hopefully includes us).

Aye for a team that Evatt wants to build with dynamic and forward thinking wing backs the pool for some of those sorts of players in England is limited - wing backs, number 10's wide centre backs - you aren't necessarily finding that many clubs playing like that at the levels we are at and thus its about finding players who can adapt.

But being able to scour across Europe I think does help us more than others in some senses as a) more teams in Europe play in a similar way and b) we have the stadium, name and potentially resources to attract some players from foreign leagues.

It does on the other hand make the judgement even more critical. Easy to get this wrong and we can't afford to.

[GhostoftheBok]

Recruitment targeting with foreign players will be almost identical to that of domestic players.

There are added complications around language and other things that impact settling in, so for that reason you will only look to bring foreign players in if they are dramatically better than those available domestically.

The "quality" risk (as in just getting your call wrong) is the same, as you'll be using the same data and same modelling. League quality adjustments are standardised at our level (the top clubs do their own, but we can't afford that level of staffing).

We've been in touch with French and German second division clubs over the past couple of years, so it's something we've been gearing towards.

Imagine being able to bring over TWO Kachungas. Insane, can you picture it? Glorious.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

This is excellent. Who has Veloso's agent number? It's definitely his year

[Worthy4England]

This is excellent. Who has Veloso's agent number? It's definitely his year

Great call. I can tell him we're ready for a tiara!

[GhostoftheBok]

I mean, I though we'd start to see movement there, but that was fast.

[officer_dibble]

Does it help beat the transfer window a bit? By that I mean does it widen the net for free transfers where players contracts expire in different leagues at different times of the year?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Does it help beat the transfer window a bit? By that I mean does it widen the net for free transfers where players contracts expire in different leagues at different times of the year?

Good question. I'm not sure, but I suspect if they were contracted to someone else at the end of your previous window you can't have them until the next one opens.