Changes to work permits in FM2016

As always Sports Interactive are seeking to make Football Manager 2016 the most realistic football management simulation available and that means replicating the real world of football as closely as possible.

What this means for this year, is that those of you managing in the English leagues are going to find it harder than ever to pick up cheap non-EU talent, due to recent (real life) changes to work permit regulations in the UK. The intention, according to FA Chairman Greg Dyke, is “to ensure only the most talented non-EU players” are allowed to come and play in the Premier League. Presumably this is to stop teams filling their squads with average non-EU players and instead give preference to average English players and, you never know, with a bit more game time, these average English players might become not quite so average anymore. In terms of what these changes actually mean, I’ll go into more detail in a second, but the headline news is 33% of non-EU players who have gained a work permit in the last few years would not have done so had these new rules been in place and this is of course going to be reflected in Football Manager 2016, as confirmed by Sports Interactive head honcho Miles Jacobson.



But what exactly does this mean for us Football Managers? To try and explain the new rules as simply as possible and then we’ll look at how this compares to the previous rules which were present in FM2015.

Whether or not a player is granted a work permit is dependent on his nationality and how important he is to the national side. Players playing for a nation with a higher FIFA ranking are more likely to get a work permit and all players wishing to receive a work permit must be featuring for their national side in some way.

In FM2015 players playing for nations ranked in the top 70 in the world where eligible for automatic work permits, this has been reduced in FM2016 to only those nations ranked in the top 50. However the percentage of games a player must have played has been reduced. Whereas in FM2015 a player must have appeared in 75% of their nations competitive games in the past 2 years, this requirement is now staggered in the following way:

FIFA Rank 1-10: At least 30% of matches
FIFA Rank 11-20: At least 45% of matches
FIFA Rank 21-30: At least 60% of matches
FIFA Rank 31-50: At least 75% of matches

So for teams ranked in the top 30 of the World FIFA Rankings it’s actually going to be considerably easier to gain an automatic work permit than before. However for teams ranked 50-75 work permits are going to be considerably harder to come by. At the moment this includes the following nations:



Looking through that list you won’t be able to recall too many wonderkids from those nations. So perhaps it’s not all so bad? After all, from the top nations such as Brazil and Argentina, players will only have to have appeared in 30% of their recent matches rather than the 75% in recent matches.

However in reality this won’t make getting work permits any easier, one of the reasons FA Chairman Greg Dyke gave for this change was with the previous system 79% of all appeals were successful, rendering the entire process somewhat pointless. So in previous years even if a player failed to meet the stringent requirement of having played 75% of their nations matches, they would probably have been granted a work permit anyway. The new system is intended to try and reduce this appeals process by lowering the threshold needed for automatic work permits, thus making it less likely that an appeal will be needed. However, the rules for appeals will also be made more strict, meaning should it go to an appeal, the appeal will be less likely to be successful. This is where FM players are really going to be affected.

Through the previous system clubs, when appealing, had to convince a panel that a player was an “exceptional talent and could contribute to the development of the English game”. Now considering these are players that clubs are wishing to spend considerable sums of money on, it’s no surprise that they’d be able to put together a case for a player being talented and contribute to the English game, after all they’ve surely had to convince themselves of the same thing first, right? In practice, this appeals process involved managers, national managers and ‘football experts’ giving personal evidence that a player is a ‘considerable talent’. For instance when Leicester had to appeal for a work permit for Croatian striker Andrej Kramaric, Croation manager Niko Kovac gave personal evidence that he intended to use Kramaric in the first team in future, and while he did not currently meet the required number of appearances, he was sure to in the future and moving to England would greatly improve his development and role within the national side.

With the new system this will all go out of the window with an introduction of a new points system. This points system will be based both on appearances for national sides but also league appearances, weighted based on the quality of the team and league, as well as the fee and wages involved. There will still be a degree of leniency and discretion for those players who don’t quite meet the rules, such as those players who have not yet reached their peek but may be expected to do so in the near future.

So whose going to be the most affected? Well players like Rudy Austin, who failed to gain a work permit to play for Sheffield Wednesday this summer despite having racked up over 100 Championship appearances in the past, who are not featuring for their national side, don’t command a high fee and are nearing the end of their career and offer no indiciation that they will improve in the future are likely to miss out. Presumably you’re going to have to look to either EU equivalents, from the likes of France, Germany or Spain, or to the lower leagues, perhaps snapping up that 30 year old Englishman from League One instead of the 30 year old Jamaican playing in Denmark.

Big name signings such as Roberto Firmino who signed for Liverpool for nearly £30m this summer will likely still be fine, despite their lack of appearances for the national side, since the wages and salary are a clear indication of the players ‘exceptional ability’. For players signed on a free transfer it is understood that a ‘proxy value’ will be assigned based on what is known about the player e.g: wages involved, past transfer fees, appearances for previous clubs etc.

All in all I’m expecting this change to affect players of Football Manager a lot more than it will affect managers in real life. You’ll still be able to sign those big name wonderkids that everyone is after for £20m. But you’re going to struggle more than ever to pick up that 17 year old Argentinian for £150k. You may know he’s an exceptional talent and your scout may agree with you, but unfortunately that’s not going to be enough to gain a work permit under the new system.

The major problem that real world football clubs are going to face is trying to decide whether to begin a lengthy and expensive pursuit of a player, without knowing whether he’ll be granted a work permit. It should be clear whether he meets the rules for an automatic work permit, or the points based appeal, but if he doesn’t it might not be worth all the time and money being spent on a drawn out negotiation without guarantee of a work permit at the end of it.

It’s not yet clear how well this will be reflected in Football Manager 2016. Will a transfer falling through financially impact a club? Will we get news items detailing exactly what the criteria is and whether a player has sufficient ‘points’ to win an appeal? So far we’ve only been promised that we’ll see more options and more in depth advice when a player fails to gain a work permit. While that sounds promising, only time will tell exactly what it will involve.

In #FM16 there is more advice on what to do with new signings who don't qualify for a work permit https://t.co/wq9fhK2UJT

— Football Manager (@FootballManager) September 9, 2015