Anxiety over the economic impacts of Brexit have plagued businesses in the UK, Europe
and around the world since the 2016 Referendum. The UK government’s
lack of clarity and failure to negotiate a smooth
transition out of European Union has left an immeasurable amount of potential impacts
on businesses. English football is not immune from these
impacts, with the Premier League’s brand as ‘the best league in
the world’ through its multinational inclusion of the best footballing talent under threat.
Through the Maastricht treaty, and the subsequent Bosman ruling in 1995, the Premier League
has hugely benefitted from the freedom of labour movement
within the EU. Brexit, for obvious reasons, would hinder
movement. EU players and those from European Economic
Area countries will now likely be subject to the same visa
and work permit restrictions as players from countries outside of the EU, making the criteria
for signing players stricter. According to football finance
lecturer Kieran Maguire, this would potentially push up the
price of imports by “10 to 15 percent” due to the extra paperwork.
The FA, however, see Brexit as an opportunity. The number of English players playing in the
Premier League has been negatively affected by the appetite
for foreign players.During the inaugural Premier League season
in 1992-93, English players started 70% of games. In the 2017/18 season, English players
started just 33% of games, a significant reduction and far less
than the proportion of native talents in the Bundesliga (47.1%), La
Liga (58%), Serie A (42.8%) and Ligue 1 (53.2%). In November 2018, the FA published its plan
to reduce the current threshold of non-homegrown players in a
club’s 25-man squad from 17 to 13 by 2021 and have stated that these changes are regardless
of any specificities in a deal negotiated between
the British government and the European Union. The FA believe
that Brexit would allow English players to receive more game-time and, therefore, better
development. The Premier League has categorically rejected
this view, stating that there is “no evidence that stronger quotas
than exist now would have a positive impact on national teams”.
While the FA’s argument seems logical it is likely based on a series of ideas driven
by confirmation bias. The English national team has underperformed
relative to public expectation since the inception of the
Premier League. This view was exacerbated by the fortunes of the ill-fated ‘golden
generation’ of the midto- late 2000s. English clubs, littered with integral
English players, were performing exceptionally in
European competitions. Between 2004/05 and 2008/09 there was an English club in every
final of the Champions League and an incredible three out
of four in the semi-finals of 07/08 and 08/09. The likes of Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand,
John Terry, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul
Scholes, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney were all star quality players able to be decisive
for the clubs on the grandest of stages. For the national team,
however, the group disappointed. Speaking before the lowlight
of the generation, the defeat to Croatia which confirmed England’s failure to qualify for
Euro2008, Gerrard aired his views on England’s struggles:
“I think there is a risk of too many foreign players coming over,
which would affect our national team eventually if it’s not already. It is important we
keep producing players.”
This theme of thinking was echoed by numerous other figures in the game, including Sir Alex
Ferguson, Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini and the FA’s
chairman Greg Dyke. Stefan Szymanski and Simon Kuper’s Soccernomics
highlights the problems with import substitution in
specific reference to English football. If English clubs were allowed to discriminate
against players from foreign countries, they claim, the quality
would decline due to not just factors relating to quality, but
motivation for native footballers; “If inferior English players were handed places in Premier
League teams, they would have little incentive to improve.”
Due to the transparent nature of football’s labour market, economic theory dictates that,
in the instance of free labour movement, the best players naturally
congregate in the best quality leagues due to the
meritocratic nature of football’s finances and the promotion and relegation structure.
Therefore, English footballers’ have the distinct advantage
of the world’s premier football competition in their back garden; the
highest development standard is set for them. Szymanski and Kuper back up their hypothesis
with statistics, comparing England’s performances in the era
of a ‘British league’, from 1968 to 1992, with their performances since 1998 (deliberately
leaving out the 1966 World Cup as it was an anomaly played
exclusively at home). They found that ‘In that first ‘British’
period up to 1992, England reached just one World Cup semi-final, in 1990. However, that
was an exception. In those years, England reached the quarter-finals
of major tournaments only four times in 13 attempts. By
contrast, in the ‘international’ period since 1998, they have reached four quarter-finals
in just eight attempts. Moreover, their win percentage at major tournaments
jumped from 52% in 1968-1992 to 62% in the ‘international’ period
The figures suggest that if anything, the international league has been good for the
England team.”. Furthermore, Szymanski and Kuper’s
statistical research took place before the 2018 World Cup, a
tournament in which England reached the semi-final. The Premier League’s claim that there is
“no evidence that stronger quotas would have a positive impact on
national teams” certainly passes the eye test.
The very fact that the Premier League is so fiercely competitive on a weekly basis both
improves the development of English-born players by setting
a higher bar, but negatively affects the national team in a
way unrelated to talent development – exhaustion. Wayne Rooney playing successive World Cups
while half-fit is a classic example. The Premier
League’s competitiveness also makes clubs’ reliance on key players
integral, sometimes in the form of rushing them back from injury early. This can lead
to severe drops in form or reoccurring injuries, neither of which
are particularly useful to the national team. To combat exhaustion, the FA have agreed with
the Premier League to introduce a ‘winter break’, a ten-day
hiatus in February, from the 2019/20 season onwards. While this is a very short break
in comparison to other European leagues (for the 2018/19 season:
Germany = 22 days; France = 16 days; Italy = 14 days; Spain
= 11 days), it is a significant step in the right direction coupled with the scrapping
of 5th round replays in the FA Cup.
It seems, therefore, that England’s ‘perceived’ underperformance less the fault of foreign
imports in the Premier League but more related to the unforgiving
nature of the English football calendar and managing
squad harmony. Meaning, of course, that whatever talent drain results from Brexit is unlikely
to directly linked to a dramatic improvement in the national
team’s fortunes.