For my first blog post, I read an article on ESPN.com regarding the new “25-man roster” rule for England’s professional soccer league, known as the English Premier League or the “EPL.” The article went into discussing how this new limitation on team rosters would affect the potency of the league and the success of individual teams when the new rule comes into effect on September 1, 2010. The rule also puts restrictions on how many “international” or “non-English born” players are allowed on each team’s roster. The author of the article argues that this addition to the rule has caused quite a controversy due to the immense amount of foreign born players who are already previously signed with teams. He went on to talk about how over the first two weeks of the new season, team managers have had to play domestic players much more often over the already proven foreign players in order to fill the quota and to abide by the new piece of legislation. He argues that while this may affect the success rate of the teams within the EPL, it may eventually become a positive catalyst in the future success of the English National Team. As someone who has played the game their entire life and follows the EPL very closely, I would have to agree with the author. It takes some background knowledge of the game and all its facets, but it has most certainly been proved over time, in my experience, that the push for more “homegrown talent” does make the national side much stronger as time goes on.
Article: http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/blog/_/name/young_mark/id/5492745/epl-25-man-rule-benefits-english-soccer
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