New rule in England will kill the way we play FM

The English Football League have just been blackmailed and bullied by the Premier League into a new agreement to be implemented from next season. It's called EPPP - Elite Player Performance Plan. Basically the Premier League clubs will be able to buy youth prospects nurtured by lower league clubs for a fraction of what they pay now. This is an absolute disgrace for football, but it will also destroy the way many of us play FM. Many of us like to taker a lower league club, and as in real life we can only survive financially by nurturing young players and selling them on for a good profit. With this new ruling not only will it hit real lower league clubs hard and deter youth development at local level, but it will spoil the game for many FM fans too. Disgusting behaviour by the greedy elite.

Its no surprise the top clubs get their way as usual, i agree with you this is going to have a huge impact on lower league clubs, to the point i would imagine a lot of them will start shutting their youth academies. Such a poorly thought out idea that only benefits one division in England.

Surely there's more behind this rule, like a "Catch" or something?

It only affects 9-17 year olds. And that's 9-14 wiped out already as FM doesn't allow 14 year old regens in EPL. So that leaves 15 - 17.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,,11661_7252955,00.html

The deal will see the current Academy system scrapped in favour of each club's youth set-up being categorised on four different levels.

Category One will the be the highest but to achieve this it will cost around £2.5million, must include 18-full time members of staff and there must also be residential provision.

The EPPP will also see the current tribunal system, which is used when the buying and selling club cannot agree a fee for the transfer of a player aged under 17, scrapped in favour of a fixed compensation scheme.

This will mean in principal a selling club will be paid £3,000 per year for every year of a player's development between the ages of nine and 11. The fee per year from 12 to 16 will depend on the selling club's academy status but ranges between £12,500 and £40,000.

It means that for a Category One club to sign any player Under-17 it will cost at most £100,000.

Yes, there's a bit more to it than the OP would like to admit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15381652.stm

I think the lower league clubs get more money from the premier league in a kind of compensation package to encourage them to keep investing in youth and to make up for the loss of revenue through player sales.

On a related note, I bet chelsea are gutted... http://asia.eurosport.com/football/european-championship-qualification/2012/papers-chelsea-buy-kid_sto2990147/story.shtml

The spin given by the Premier league is that more English players will get a move to a top-flight club as they will not have inflated valuations, the truth is that EPL clubs will just snap up half decent prospect to fill their academy squads at the expense of lower league teams.

Based on reports the football league clubs were under duress to sign off on the deal as the Premier league was allegedly saying that they would reduce the amount of TV money they filter down.

I think the lower league clubs get more money from the premier league in a kind of compensation package to encourage them to keep investing in youth and to make up for the loss of revenue through player sales.

On a related note, I bet chelsea are gutted... http://asia.eurosport.com/football/european-championship-qualification/2012/papers-chelsea-buy-kid_sto2990147/story.shtml

I should add, I still think it's disgusting.

Thread for discussion in the Football forum here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/275134-Elite-Player-Performance-Plan-(EPPP)