What exactly has happened today?
Brexit, much like the principles of its main proponents, is always open for negotiation.
The UK Home Office have today agreed to change their own post-Brexit rules around English clubs’ recruitment of players from abroad and while we will get into the detail in a moment, it is now easier for clubs in the Premier League and the EFL to sign players from outside of Britain.
From this summer’s transfer window, clubs will be allowed to sign up to four players from abroad who wouldn’t otherwise meet the post-Brexit rules. The precise number of those players that can be signed will be decided by how many minutes they give to English players.
To put it more obvious terms: under the first set of Brexit rules, Leicester City would not have been able to sign N’Golo Kante. But under the new set of rules, they would have been allowed sign him under this new exemption.
These changes are bigger for English football than here at home, as they don’t reverse the fundamental ban on Irish players under the age of 18 signing for English clubs. There will be some small tremors felt here, though, which we will also get to shortly.
Okay, remind me what Brexit meant for football both here and in the UK?
Prior to Brexit, English football clubs recruited players from three different jurisdictions: domestic (which included the UK and, under the rules of the Common Travel Area, the Republic of Ireland); the EU; and outside the EU.
Domestic and EU players could be signed from the age of 16, as per Fifa rules. Those signed outside the EU, however, had to be aged 18 before they could be signed, again under Fifa’s rules. British clubs needed government approval to sign players from this latter group, under a points-based system titled the Government Body Endorsement (GBE.) Anyone with a passing knowledge of British red tape will correctly guess that it’s much more difficult to sign anyone needing a GBE. The criteria for being approved includes a player’s senior international appearances and the standard of the league from which they are joining.
After Brexit, from 2021 all non-Irish players from EU countries joined this latter group in requiring a GBE. The situation for Irish players changed too. From the moment Britain left the EU, Irish players could only sign for UK clubs from the age of 18. Those 18 and over, however, didn’t need a GBE, with the Common Travel Area given precedence.
This created a slightly unusual dynamic: it abruptly stopped any Irish players going to the UK before the age of 18, but theoretically made it easier for any Irish player over 18 to cross the Irish Sea, given the opportunities opened up by the fact they didn’t need to satisfy the GBE that virtually all other foreign-born players had to.
That Irish players aged between 16 and 18 had to either stay at home or break new cultural ground by going to another EU country was an earthquake for the game here. Between between 2011 and 2020, the country responsible for the highest number of U18 footballers transferred abroad was the Republic of Ireland. The vast, vast majority of these went to the UK, a practice that stopped at the stroke of a pen.
Okay, so what has happened in Ireland in the two-and-a-half years since?
The exodus of 16-year-olds from Ireland to the UK has, indeed, stopped. Some young players have gone to Europe, like Kevin Zefi from Shamrock Rovers to Inter Milan, James Abankwah from St Pat’s to Udinese, and Matthew Moore from Cork City to Hoffenheim.
More, however, have decided to stay, and some have been quickly promoted to their first teams. As a result, the average age in the League of Ireland Premier Division has plunged. In 2020 it was 28.1, but across the 2023 season thus far, it’s fallen to 24.3.
The FAI have belatedly got serious about bringing their youth development structures and facilities up to scratch. They got a bucket of cold water in a recent Uefa report on the matter, which found that top-division professional clubs in Ireland average between zero and one full-time coach in their academy, which is well below the European average of between five and seven.
Director of Football Marc Canham is currently leading a country-wide consultation tour, the feedback from which will form a Player Pathway Plan to be published later this year. The FAI also last week published their infrastructure plan, and are asking for €140 million across 15 years to develop academies at each LOI men’s and women’s club. “Brexit”, they write, “has accelerated the need for real, lasting change.”
What about the English FA and their clubs? Have they been happy with how it’s gone?
Not particularly. There are three parties here: the English FA, the Premier League, and the EFL.
Let’s start with the FA, who are worried about English players not getting an opportunity to play often enough at the highest level.
They first drew up these new post-Brexit rules in consultation with clubs in the Premier League and across the EFL, and conveyed them in a letter to clubs in April. The 42 has seen this letter, along with a separate letter from the EFL to its clubs in which they summarise the FA’s problems.
The FA are concerned that only two of England’s U17 World Cup winners from 2017 were included in Gareth Southgate’s squad at the Qatar World Cup last winter, and also say English players lag behind their main European counterparts for minutes played in the Champions League and Europa League this season. This is why they wanted a system that would incentivise clubs to play their English talents.
The Premier League, meanwhile, hate the Brexit rules as they now have to sign overseas players from the age of 18, which means paying more for them than they would have at the age of 16. CEO Richard Masters said earlier this year that the rules has led to inflated transfer spending.
EFL Clubs aren’t happy either, as their access to players from outside Britain and Ireland has been almost entirely cut off. The Premier League clubs are at least able to stump up the cash for the internationally-established players who fulfill the points-based GBE, but this is beyond the reach of most EFL clubs.
In their letter to clubs, the EFL explicitly state that Brexit “has curtailed recruitment at those younger age groups from the Republic of Ireland”, adding that “there is no doubt that Brexit materially impacted on an EFL Club’s ability to recruit overseas talent.”
Plus, given they are unable to recruit younger overseas players on the cheap, EFL clubs can no longer sell them on to the Premier League clubs. As a result, the gap between the two levels is widening: transfer fees that once trickled down the system are now being spent abroad.
So what has changed?
From now on, English clubs will be allowed to sign players who would otherwise fail the GBE test. These players will be known as ‘Significant Contribution’ players, as clubs believe they will make a, well, significant contribution.
Clubs will be rewarded with more exempt players if they agree to give minutes to England-eligible players.
Premier League and Championship clubs can claim up to four if they give 35% of their total minutes to English Qualified Players. Clubs from League One and Two can claim up to two of these exempt players if they reach the 35% mark.
(Premier League and Championship clubs will be guaranteed two exempt players from next season, with clubs from Leagues One and Two guaranteed one. It’s from the season after that the number of exempt players will be determined by the amount of minutes given to English Qualified Players.)
Okay – but what does it mean for Ireland?
The crucial point to emphasise is these rule changes only apply to players aged 18 and over. So Irish players aged 16 and 17 are still forbidden from signing for clubs in Britain. The UK can’t change this rule, as it’s only Fifa’s remit. While it’s occasionally mooted, sources say they are unlikely to take so drastic a move as this anytime soon.
So ultimately any impact of this change will be subtly felt here.
Clubs across all of England’s top four tiers will now find it slightly easier to sign clubs from abroad, which will in turn lead to a slight reduction in cross-channel opportunity for Irish players over the age of 18. It won’t be seismic, but this may lead to slightly fewer Irish players getting a gig in England.
Where the impact might be most keenly felt is in the realm of dual-nationality players. English clubs will be rewarded with more Brexit-exempt players if they play English-eligible players, which naturally makes those English-eligible players more valuable to them.
The definition of English-eligible players is important here: it is anyone who can play for England’s senior team, including those who are playing for the underage team of another country. Given he is in the news this week, let’s pick Tom Cannon as a prime example of an English-eligible player under these new rules.
The new system incentivises dual-national players not to declare their international allegiances early in their careers. There are long-established financial reasons as to why a dual-nationality player would choose England over Ireland (one current Irish player, for instance, was offered an on-the-spot, five-figure sum by a boot manufacturer to declare for England at the age of 16 but turned it down as he had an affinity with Ireland) and these new rules now means it’s also in a club’s interest for their players to hedge their international allegiances.
It’s possible that these new rules means Ireland are burdened with even more situations like Tom Cannon’s into the future.