Home Grown Players (HGP) Quota – Summer 2022 Transfer Window

Each year I write about the 25-man squad and the implications of the home grown players rule and how it will impact on Spurs’ transfer strategy. The home grown player numbers could impact on how many signings Fabio Paratici can make, the nature of those signings and/or the size of our squad for the rest of the season.

The Premier League ‘Home Grown Players (HGP)’ Rule

The misconception about the requirement itself is that clubs must name eight home grown players in their squads. We could name fewer than eight HGPs, but would need to also name fewer than 25 players in our squad — for example, if we only have seven HGPs, we can name a 24-man squad, 6/23, 5/22, etc. 

Remember, an HGP is defined as one whom, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21). Source: Premier League.

As ever, we will not need to name players who are under 21 on our squad list, so could augment our squad with youngsters. This would mean that we could manage with, say, a 22-man squad with just five HGPs, but would need plenty of under 21 players who are ready to play. For the 2022/23 campaign, players considered ‘under 21’ will have been born on or after 1 January 2001. This means that for the current season we could still have a number of ‘freebies’ who are fairly well-known names, the likes of: Bryan Gil, Jamie Bowden, Harvey White, Kion Etete, Troy Parrott, Malachi Fagan-Walcott, Kallum Cesay, Pape Matar Sarr, Maksim Paskotši, Nile John, Matthew Craig, Dane Scarlett, Charlie Sayers, Alfie Devine. Some of these players will ultimately be sent out on loan, of course.

From this season, Dejan Kulusevski, Ryan Sessegnon, Oliver Skipp, Jack Clarke, Brooklyn Lyons-Foster and Marcel Lavinier would need to be named on our squad list should we wish to use them as they were all born before 1 January 2001.

The Champions League ‘Home Grown Players (HGP)’ Rule

The Champions League rules are a little different to the Premier League rules — have a look at article 45 (‘Player Lists’) of the regulations. UEFA don’t just want clubs to have players trained elsewhere in the FA structure; they have additional requirements for club-trained players. They want to encourage clubs to bring through their own young players.

If we want to name a ‘full’ (25-man) squad in the Champions League, we would need at least four ‘association-trained’ players and four ‘club-trained’ players.

Club-trained players

• Harry Kane
• Harry Winks
• Alfie Whiteman
• Brandon Austin
• Japhet Tanganga
• Oliver Skipp

Association-trained players

• Fraser Forster
• Ryan Sessegnon
• Jack Clarke (on the verge of a move to Sunderland)

Players under 21 can be included on List B so long as they have been ‘eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday by the time he is registered with UEFA, or a total of three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan period to a club from the same association for a period not longer than one year.’

List B Players who might be useful

• Harvey White
• Kion Etete
• Troy Parrott
• Malachi Fagan-Walcott
• Kallum Cesay
• Nile John
• Matthew Craig
• Dane Scarlett
• Alfie Devine

It’s worth noting that several of the above will likely be out on loan.

Summary

We currently have 31 players who would need to be named on the Premier League squad list if we wanted to play them (the maximum allowed is 25). Many of these players are expected to leave (Tanguy Ndmbele, Giovani Lo Celso, Harry Winks, Japhet Tanganga, etc) and some are previously unused youth players (Brooklyn Lyons-Foster, Marcel Lavinier) plus two goalkeepers in Brandon Austin and Alfie Whiteman (who is currently on loan), and so it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions about whether the squad list restrictions will be an issue for us at this point; but I would say probably not.

As ever, it’s a slightly more delicate situation in the UEFA competition due to the relatively low number of club and association-trained players.

Depending on how the summer transfer activity goes, we may end up having to select a slightly smaller squad than the maximum allowed for the Champions League. This is unlikely to cause a substantial issue and we have the ability to supplement the matchday squad with List B players, but we should be aware that we are putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage through not having enough club and association-trained players in our squad. Djed Spence is an even more attractive option with this in mind, and, as per the tweet above, I’m encouraged to see us linked with players like Alex Scott. We should also be looking at several of the other players who excelled for England in the Under 19 European Championship; for example, Aston Villa’s Carney Chukwuemeka only has a contract for one more year.

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