There was a lot of talk last season about the Premier League imposing a rule that would limit the amount of foreign players a team could have on the roster.
Today, the official rule was announced: any team in the Premier League must, at the beginning of each season and at the end of each transfer window, name 25 players on their roster- and at least 8 have to be "homegrown." The term is defined by the EPL as "any player who has played for an English or Welsh team for at least three years before his 21st birthday."
The EPL imposed this new law to force teams to focus on their youth leagues and cut down on spending on foreign players. There will also be stricter rules about club finances, working with clubs to set budgets if they seem to be overstepping their bounds.
I think this is a pretty good idea. Clubs with less than stellar youth leagues will be more inclined to clean them up now that they have to have at least eight named on their roster, even if they're never named in the starting 11.
The only example of a team with an amazing youth program that I know of is Barcelona, but that's because a good portion of their team came up through the youth leagues. Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Valdes, Puyol, Bojan, Pedro, and Jeffren all came up through the Barca youth league, and look how successful they've been lately.
I think this rule will take some time to take effect since the club who haven't put much effort into their youth leagues and instead relied on the help of international players will have to restructure their systems, but it will definitely have positive repercussions on the soccer world, at least within England.
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