FA keen on bolstering homegrown talent as it plans to limit foreigners in English football

Johannesburg: England's Football Association (FA) is keen on bolstering homegrown talent as it revealed that it wants to limit the number of non-European Union players in the Premier League teams.

FA chairman Greg Dyke set up a commission and have put forward a report proposing an overhaul of the work permit system and to create a new division for Premier League 'B teams'.

According to Sport24, the work permit proposals aim to bring England in line with other European countries as they include a blanket ban on non-European Union players for clubs outside the top flight.

Dyke has reportedly set a target of increasing the current 66 English players, who are eligible to play for England and are playing regularly in the 20-team Premier League, to 90 by 2022.

Dyke, who set up his commission in October to investigate the reason behind falling number of English players in the Premier League, said that the decline is a problem in countries right across Europe.

However, Dyke added that it is a significantly bigger problem in England than anywhere else and if the trend continues, they fear for t he future of the English team.

The FA chairman said that if the fall in the number of English players is not reversed then a future England manager would have fewer and fewer top-level players to choose from.

The 10-man FA commission includes Dyke, England manager Roy Hodgson and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand and it produced an 82-page report after talking to more than 650 people from across English and European football, the report added.