IPSWICH Town chairman David Sheepshanks has admitted the introduction of the home-grown rule will make little difference initially, but hopes it is a step in the right direction.

Derek Davis

IPSWICH Town chairman David Sheepshanks has admitted the introduction of the home-grown rule will make little difference initially, but hopes it is a step in the right direction.

At least four players in every 16-man match-day squad will have to have been registered domestically for at least three years before their 21st birthday.

Sheepshanks said: “There will not be much difference in the short term. All championship clubs can easily comply already week in week out.

“Those clubs that get relegated won't have much difficult in complying either. It is not an onerous regulation.

“Whether club in the future have the appetite to extend to threshold is something else but it is an important message that the Football League supports home grown talent.

“For the last England international 14 of the 23-man squad came from the Football League, including Darren Bent.”

The rule will not stop clubs bringing in young foreign players as that would be against European law and if they have been with an English club for three years while under 21, they qualify as home-grown.

Sheepshanks also revealed that neither wage nor squad capping would not be introduced by the Championship, and Ipswich were among those clubs that voted against the idea.

He said: “Wage capping is not going to happen It would be self defining and self defeating

“Clubs want to be able to compete with the Premier League clubs and get into the top flight and it will be like half pulling up the drawbridge ourselves if we were to introduce that.

“New owners like Marcus Evans came into the business without restriction to invest. It is a free-market practice and majority of clubs were against it.”