One of the big complaints about modern football is the lack of protection for young local talent, in favor of foreign players of often doubtful quality.
With that debate raging in the UK, the Planet Football website decided to test a Premier League with a homegrown protection rule in FM2018.
The rule was simple: only players with British nationality could play. The result? An unpredictable table, transfers all over the place and shocking results.
The rules and the market
No team could put foreign players on the team sheet, although they remained in the squads.
The market felt the impact immediately. There was a rush for the best eligible players, and the AI even tried to get around the problem with citizenship applications for players who had lived in England for many years.
Some examples: Daniel Sturridge went to Manchester City for £57 million, and City also signed Ben Davies from Tottenham. Juan Mata, now with a British passport, moved to Arsenal.
To replace their left back, Tottenham signed… James Milner. Aston Villa spent much of their budget on Mason Holgate (40 million), and Everton used that money to sign James Ward-Prowse from Southampton.
Manchester United, Leicester and Huddersfield stayed out of the market.
First half of the season and the winter window
Manchester United and Tottenham comfortably led a table plunged into chaos. Bournemouth were third, while Arsenal, City and Chelsea fought fiercely… for 11th place.
Yes, Abramovich’s Chelsea, who had already sacked Sarri, were mid-table with two other title contenders. Even so, Hazard, a Belgian naturalized as English, led the league ratings with an average of 8.13.
Huddersfield suffered most from the rule: 2 points from 14 games.
Guardiola, who would be replaced by Simeone right after the window closed, still spent 57 million on Zaha. Ramsey went to Everton for 50 million and Southampton paid 48.5 million for West Brom’s Matt Phillips.
Unai Emery also fell, replaced at the Emirates by Ancelotti after Arsenal dropped to 16th.
Mourinho, despite being top, spent the most: James Tarkowski, Kieran Tierney and Scott Arfield, for 93 million.
The end of the season
The Special One, unlike what was happening to him in real life, won the league with ease, on 90 points.
Tottenham and their crop of English players, one of the early favorites, finished second, just one point ahead of Burnley. Leicester missed out on the Champions League by one goal of goal difference, to Liverpool.
Bottom-placed Huddersfield got their only win of the season on the final day.
And the most curious part: despite the rule, the foreigners still ruled. Agüero, Lukaku and Giroud topped the scoring charts and Hazard was the player of the season. It seems that, for the rule to work, the foreign players would have to be removed from the squads altogether.
Do you think a rule like this would make sense in the Portuguese league?
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Source: Planet Football
