Stoke: New ‘home-grown’ rules

New league rules come into play on Wednesday with the requirement that all Premier League clubs must limit their squad to 25 players over the age of 21.

Stoke will get just 24 hours after the closure of the transfer window to name the final squad that will take them through to January 1st 2011. Whilst it doesn’t look like it will pose too much of a headache for Tony Pulis, the likes of Man City are already having problems having had to push the likes of Craig Bellamy out of Eastlands to stay within the rules.

The rules allow a club to only have 25 players over the age of 21 and they must also include at least eight players who are classified as ‘home-grown’ (ie: they signed for an English or Welsh club before they were 18 or were born in either England or Wales). For the Potters that includes Asmir Begovic and Robert Huth as they originally signed for English clubs before they turned 18. In addition, we can have as many players as we like that were born after 1st January 1989 and they don’t have to be named in the 25 man list. This rule only applies to Premier League matches, we can name any other players that are contracted to the club for the Carling and FA Cup matches – even if they’re not in the squad of 25.

So, by my reckoning, we currently have 17 ‘home-grown’ and exactly 25 players in our squad that are over 21 – although those numbers are very likely to change in the next 24 hours.

Link to Premier League website