The Football Association’s England Commission began with Greg Dyke’s grand apocalyptic speech from the top of Millbank Tower on the threats facing the English game, warning that the national side would slide into irrelevance unless major changes were made.
Yet despite those lofty aims, the process could end with a political fudge allowing Premier League teams to field an under-21 side in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and some minor tinkering with the red tape surrounding the issue of work permits to non-EU players.
Which is not to say that the FA’s proposals to alter the rules surrounding work permit applications are without merit. Just that they are likely to do little to solve the problem the FA has set itself the challenge of tackling.
Last summer, there were just nine Premier League transfers that went to the contentious appeal stage. Five, including the arrival of Willian at Chelsea and Fernandinho at Manchester City, were allowed. Of the remaining four, two of the transfers collapsed in any case.
Between 2009 and 2013, 122 non-EU overseas players were granted visas. There were clear anomalies among them and the appeals system, in particular, is long overdue reform.
Dyke is right to say that the current rules are “chaotic” and that the arbitrary appeals system is daft. His overarching aim – to ensure that only the very best non-EU players come and play in England and that squad lists aren’t cluttered up with overseas journeymen – is of course noble.
But of those 122 visas that were granted over the last five years, only 23 were to teams in the Football League. So when Dyke suggests it will make a serious difference to the number of English youngsters getting an opportunity in the Football League, he is gilding the lily somewhat.
“The rules say elite non-European players, the very best, should be allowed to come in – we agree with that. What we’re saying is a lot aren’t and then don’t play that much and they do take squad places,” he said on Wednesday.
“A lot, particularly in the Football League, disappear after a year or so. The system doesn’t work at the moment. Let’s do what the law said was intended to do – let the best players come in but let’s give those squad places, the rest of them, to young English kids.”
The biggest effect may be on those clubs such as Chelsea and Arsenal who in recent years have made international scouting a priority, bringing in promising youngsters from around the world and loaning them out to gain first team experience. Under the FA’s proposed changes, players granted a visa would not be allowed to go out on loan.
The Brazilian under-20 international Wallace, currently one of several Chelsea players on loan at Vitesse Arnhem, would appear to fall into that category. But, again, it only affects a handful of players.
There are also a couple of odd anomalies about the proposals as they stand. Banning Football League clubs from applying for a visa outright seems odd. Is there really much difference between an ambitious Championship side and a struggling Premier League one?
And setting an arbitrary transfer limit of £10m above which it would be possible to sign players outside the top 50 ranked nations seems strange too. Who is to say that £10m is the price at which you become an “elite” player? And with transfer inflation proceeding at its current pace, it might not be long before most Premier League transfers come in above that level in any case.
These changes, which will now be consulted on by the Premier League, the Football League and football’s other “stakeholders”, are on the whole welcome.
But minor changes to the visa rules will do little to address the major structural challenges facing English football – improving coaching at grassroots and elite level, drastically improving facilities, increasing the porousness between club academies and the surrounding clubs and schools, persuading clubs and owners to act for long term benefit rather than short term gains and solving the “blockage” that afflicts even the most promising prospects between 18 and 21. Identifying the problems is not difficult. It’s willing the means to find solutions that is more tricky.
The FA would argue that it is working on all that too, even if progress is slow – and sometimes out of its hands (as with swingeing council cuts to sports facilities). And the Premier League’s belated conversion to the cause with the implementation of its £340m elite player performance plan, together with an attempt to improve the competitiveness of its under-21 league, deserves some time to show whether it can work. But, as Dyke has repeatedly pointed out, time is running out.
One timely stat doing the rounds this week shows that 82 Spanish players are registered for in main squad lists for the Champions League, compared to 17 English players. That’s one more than Belarus, and includes John Terry, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Roma’s Ashley Cole who have retired from international football. Time is also running out for Dyke himself, who came into the job in a whirlwind of characteristic energy on a mandate to get things done but has slowly seen the life drained from him by English football’s slow turning bureaucracy.
As he heads to Geneva on Thursday night, where Wembley is expected to be named as the host for the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020, those who have invested much in his ability to shake off the inertia and inevitable self interest of English football must hope that his visa reform plans are the first in a series of bold steps rather than an attempt to bank an easy win and move on.
