England's performance - A strong case for an end to the Bosman ruling

[Ed999]

Having watched the dull nil-nil draw, and seen England pipped for top place in the opening group, I'm going to risk controversy by asking if I'm alone in thinking the team's performance is suffering due to the now quite limited pool of eligible players who are regularly playing in the Premiership?

Twenty years ago, in 1995, a European court imposed a new law that caused a revolution in football. Previously, clubs were limited in the number of foreign players they could sign, but the so-called 'Bosman ruling' created a free-for-all, by banning the F.A. and the Football League from restricting the number of foreigners who play in the leagues. This has meant fewer and fewer home-born players playing in the English and Scottish leagues, so the prospects for the national teams get worse and worse.

The number of English players in the Premiership has fallen so greatly that not enough English players are able to gain experience at the top level any more. The team could select from a larger pool of English talent if more home players were able to gain by playing regularly in the Premiership. You can't really argue that players can get better through playing in the lower leagues.

Surely there needs to be a limit on the number of foreigners each club can play in a match? But we can't impose such a limit while the Bosman ruling exists.

Bosman was a foreign player, who wanted to move from a Belgian club to a French one: so it had absolutely nothing to do with British football.

By ruling the old transfer system illegal, the European court granted footballers freedom of movement.The players naturally went where the money was. Medium-sized clubs could no longer afford to keep their best players, and so the talent began an inexorable flow into the hands of the two or three biggest clubs. Foreign players began to be preferred over British ones, and the game began a long trek towards a state where the National teams had a smaller and smaller pool of players to draw on who were experienced at the top level.

My impression is no one who supports any of the other 89 clubs in the professional leagues wants to continue with a system that gives three or four big-money clubs a financial stranglehold on the English game. In Scotland the position is even worse, with their league traditionally in the financial grip of only two clubs.

This week the opportunity has come up to take back control of our own leagues, and shake off the shackles of the Bosman ruling. We would be free to run our game ourselves, in whatever manner we wish, without the interference of foreign courts, and improve the prospects of the national team, if we vote to leave the EU. Quite a thought!

[filbertstreet]

Squad would be a bit crap

 

 

                     Hamer

 

 Simpson Morgan Moore Chilwell

 

Albrighton Drinkwater James Gray

 

                 Vardy Dodoo

[davieG]

I tend to agree but would suggest that any control would be unlikely to have a significant affect on the number 'foreign' players playing for the top 5/6 clubs where successive England managers have largely selected the team.

 

Also it's worth noting that we've won nothing, not even the European Championship since 1966 and certainly in the early years foreign players weren't around in great numbers/

[Trav Le Bleu]

The glaringly obvious fault with this argument is that this is the same for all countries in Europe. Did Spain fail to win their group cos de Gea, Fabregas, Morata, Thiago, amongst others, don't play for top Spanish clubs? Or Germany with Gomez, Ozil, Podolski, Khedira, et all? We're pretty much in the same boat as other nations. We're just not very good is the truth.

[Tuna]

Squad would be a bit crap

Hamer

Simpson Morgan Moore Chilwell

Albrighton Drinkwater James Gray

Vardy Dodoo

Who does James Gray play for?

[MPH]

See what happens when you invent football and your league gets shown around the world and you get lots of money and buy the best players? it comes back to bite you on the bum!

[MPH]

Who does James Gray play for?

I dont know but he came up with some bad ass quotes whoever he is...

 

[RedSoxUK]

No, it's our own inability to either not recognise talent, or overhype perceived talent too early.

 

I don't blame foreign players or the wealth of the Prem hindering England, that's a lame excuse. Football is still everyones favourite sport here, kids still play it and are more insterested in it that ever before I believe. So the pool is still there. Most players at youth level and academy level are English, so don't blame foreign players for England's own lack of quality. If the Prem's competitiveness improves so much that English players are restricted to the Championship then so what? It's largely irrelevant when a player like Vardy spent most of his footballing days in non-league. Sure it's an exception to the elitist rule, but it's the overall general view of the English pool that has been worrying for years, elitism does run through it. The fact Marcus Rashford has skipped the England U21s, and has two England apps, made the finals squad at 18 because he's scored a few goals in a Manchester United shirt just shows how ill the system is.

 

Don't blame the imagined lack of pickings, but the people at the top doing the pickings.

 

Drinkwater would be in France right now if he had that 2015/2016 in a United shirt.

[m4DD0gg]

While ever the premier league has a massive strangle hold over the FA and the seemingly unlimited finances our clubs receive our national team will always struggle.

 

Been resigned to that fact for years now.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Who does James Gray play for?

@@KFS 

[GaelicFox]

How on earth does Bosman be the reason for a shite international team

Yer shite because the FA is a clueless organisation and hired a useless dinosaur !

I have read some crap on here but this is right up there with chicken Licken

[Kitchandro]

The Bosman ruling was terrible for football but it's not to blame for the England national team.

[Dodgy Bob]

There are 70-odd English players starting in the premier league each weekend, which for me should be plenty to choose from for England.

With a lot of foreigners in the league it should be stronger (because clubs are free to pick the best players regardless of nationality) so that should benefit the English players who do play here who will improve courtesy of playing with and against a higher standard of player every week.

If we reduced the amount of foreigners in the league they would be replaced by English players of a lower standard, which would be no good for England on two counts: firstly because the extra lower quality players wouldn't get in the England squad anyway because they're lower quality than the 70 already playing, secondly because it would lower the standard of the league in general.

There is maybe an argument that big clubs hoard and ruin players, and that English players don't get a chance for England because they're not playing for big brand clubs. But England managers like Hodgson are to blame for that. They send out the message that if you're not playing for a big brand club you've got a much lower chance of playing for England, which provides an extra incentive for players to leave perfectly good clubs and go to a bigger club where they end up rotting on the bench.

What England need is a manager who is going to pick the best on form players regardless of where they play, and then we've got a chance of putting a decent team together.

I say a chance, because it still is only a chance, luck plays a huge part. To win a tournament you usually need 7 or 8 world class players fit and on form and there's not a lot any nation can do to ensure that. You can't 'make' world class players. They're either there or they're not. Look at Spain, one world class generation, won everything and then we're out in the groups at the world cup. Nothing had changed in their league, it's just that they were lucky such a generation came through, and when it had gone they were back to being average. Maybe one day England will have such a generation again and this time it won't be wasted by a poor manager. But while we've got elderly journalists in charge of the FA I can't see it happening. Their goal seems to be to avoid criticism, and they're doing that by forcing people to lose interest in the national team.

[Out Foxed]

Squad would be a bit crap

 

 

                     Hamer

 

 Simpson Morgan Moore Chilwell

 

Albrighton Drinkwater James Gray

 

                 Vardy Dodoo

so would most other teams

[filbertway]

Are there any players even close to having a chance of playing for England playing abroad?

 

I imagine Dier wouldn't even be within a shout if he wasn't picked up from Portugal.

 

Are we the only country in the euro's that has picked home based players?

[Bayfox]

Who does James Gray play for?

Same team as Morgan Moore.

[Donut]

Basically, changing the setup to have more English players in the Premier League is likely to at best keep the status quo, and probably make the national team worse.

 

Its about the players and managers we produce. Theyre not as good as from other countries and thats been consistently shown throughout history.

 

The skills they have, their approach to the game.

[linemakers]

It's not the Bosnian ruling that's caused England to finish 2nd in the group. It's the manager who didn't pick form players and can not play a system to suit each game. Against Russia when we were 1-0 up it was crying for Vardy to come on as Russia pushed forward and left space but no. It took him a game and a half before realising Sterling is crap and Kane knackered. When we played last game knowing we would have most of the ball he played Vardy who had no space to run into. He's crap

[Webbo]

The premier league pays the best wages. No top English player could earn more abroad than they can here. Why would any of them go there.

[Nalis]

Even it is was, there has been over 20 years to adapt.

[Vlad the Fox]

How on earth does Bosman be the reason for a shite international team

Yer shite because the FA is a clueless organisation and hired a useless dinosaur !

I have read some crap on here but this is right up there with chicken Licken

**** off. Chicken Licken was one of my favourite books as a kid. Better at set pieces than kane as well.

[GaelicFox]

**** off. Chicken Licken was one of my favourite books as a kid. Better at set pieces than kane as well.

I was off my head pissed in the middle of the vardy leaving melt down and I copy and pasted the whole story on a new thread in an effort to point out that the world wasn't ending !

Trying to be smart and clever when you have drunk two bottles of rum is stupid and dumb

Stan and the boys banned me for 24 hours for being mental

[Vlad the Fox]

I was off my head pissed in the middle of the vardy leaving melt down and I copy and pasted the whole story on a new thread in an effort to point out that the world wasn't ending !

Trying to be smart and clever when you have drunk two bottles of rum is stupid and dumb

Stan and the boys banned me for 24 hours for being mental

. Brilliant, I must have missed that but possibly the best way to make a point I've ever seen. The ban was out of order.

Any way you can get dick Whittington into the eu thread.