Quote: SmokeyTA "1.No, you misunderstand, they wouldn't need to rely on youngsters. Say you needed 8 homegrown players. You have a squad of 25 but also unlimited u21s. So you could have a squad of 25 players, 0 of which are homegrown, and an unlimited amount of u21 players all of which are homegrown. '"
No it's actually you who misunderstands.
The rule is a maximum of 17 players out of a 25 man squad who are not homegrown. The u21's are irrelevant, you can play as many of them as you want regardless of their status. But the 25 man squad (ie those over the age of 21) can only contain a max of 17 non homegrown players. If a club were to have 0 homegrown players in its squad then it would only name a 17 man squad. The explanation on the Premier League website is quite clear.
[i"To ensure that Premier League Clubs continue to produce top home-grown talent, the 20 Clubs introduced a Home Grown Player rule from the start of the 2010/11 campaign. Clubs cannot name more than 17 non home grown players aged over 21. For example some clubs will have a squad list of 23 because they may have 17 over 21 non home grown players. "
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Quote: SmokeyTA "2.in 2010? Hargreaves didn't play for man Utd again because of injury. '"
And because he counted as overseas.
Just take a look at the squads announced for this football season.
Why have teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Man City and Spurs all announced a squad of fewer than 25 players? Because they don't have the homegrown players so have to leave a gap.
Now of course, they could run with a weaker squad, or they could challenge this illegal rule couldn't they? If it's so easily knocked down why hasn't it been by one of these mega rich football clubs?
Quote: SmokeyTA "3. But nationality is not irrelevant to where you are trained. You cannot have a free movement agreement with another country and then insist that anybody who wishes to work here had come at this age and spent this much time here before that age. That isn't free movement in any way shape or form. You can't stick a restriction that makes it infinitely more difficult for these people and pretend it is free movement. The people who write these treaties aren't idiots. The persons right to seek work would supersede the RFL's laws. '"
Yes it is Smokey. You can keep arguing that black is white for ever if you like. It won't alter the fact that nationality is irrelevant to these rules. As proved by Gareth Widdop, Jack Reed and Mitch Achurch, amongst others.
Quote: SmokeyTA "4. 5 times n 6 years is a fair old amount. And in the absence of evidence to the contrary I'm not going to assume there have been examples of the RFL actually enforcing the quota that we just don't know about. '"
Which 5 times are these? And how were the rules changed?
So you mean you're going to ignore evidence of the rule working and only accept evidence of it (in your opinion) not working?
Quote: SmokeyTA "5.yet we have a governing. Body that hasn't actually ever enforced the rules, changed them whenever asked, and a much bigger governing body publicly stating that quotas just aren't enforceable'"
Simply repeating what you put before without any evidence isn't actually an argument or a response you know.
You can't do it can you? You've backed yourself into a corner now because you'd decided the non-fed trained rules didn't work without looking into it properly, and now you can't admit you were wrong so you're just going to continue to ignore all the evidence from other sports and our own.
