New visa rules

[Swanseaborn]

This potentially could come in handy:
Premier League clubs can sign up to four players who fail to meet the Home Office's requirements for visas, in new rules announced by the FA.
The old rules saw Premier League teams unable to sign any players who failed to meet the Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) points threshold.
That points total was based on the senior and youth international appearances for the incoming player, the quality of the selling club and the standard of league they come from, as well as the number of career minutes.
Failure to meet that threshold meant the UK Government would block the transfer.
However, new rules have said that Premier League clubs can sign up to four players who fail to meet the standard. Championship clubs will also be allowed four players, while League One and League Two clubs get two of these signings.

 

[bakajack]

Clever foreign scouting will become critical again.
Who knows where the next Rangel is lurking...

 

[SwansInTheLake]

Interesting that we (and the other Welsh Clubs) may miss out on bringing in additional players outside the old GBE points system. Only English qualified players will count towards the additional exemption slots (35% of minutes by English players needed for additional exemptions). Could be a detriment to our young Welsh players coming through if its more beneficial to play English players!

According to the FA's official rules on GBE (Governing Body Exemption) for work permits -

---
2.1. Premier League and EFL Championship shall have up to four ESC Places available at any one
time as follows:
2.1.1. two ESC Places (regardless of their Weighted EQP Minutes Percentage); and
2.1.2. up to two additional ESC Places as determined by its Weighted EQP Minutes
Percentage, as set out in Table 1 below.
---

And EQP is defined as -

---
English Qualified Player (or EQP) means a player who was eligible to play for the England Senior
Men’s Team at the time the player was first permanently registered with the club.
---