By Tony Attwood
As has been the case for a few seasons now, each of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League clubs that has made it to the round of 32 is allowed to register a maximum of three new eligible players. Since 2018/19, however, it no longer matters if those players have already played in the competition for another club, not even if that other club is still in the competition.
Each squad is still limited to 25 List A players (players can be removed to make room, from the September list).
Teams will be able to make five substitutions but, to limit the number of stoppages, they will only be allowed to make these changes at three points in the game.
The list A rules
- Maximum of 25 players, 2 of whom must be goalkeepers, in which
- Maximum of 21 non-club-trained players, in which
- Maximum of 17 non-association-trained players, and
List B:
- Unlimited U21 club players.
The ‘club-trained’ definition.
Players are club trained if and only if they were registered with the clubs at least 3 years between 15 and 21, continuous or not, regardless of their nationality or age.
Players are ‘association-trained’ if and only if they satisfy the same criteria but with clubs in the same FA . That means club-trained players are association-trained, but the reverse is not necessarily true.
- Bernd Leno,
- Mat Ryan,
- Karl Hein*
- James Hillson*
- Arthur Okwonko*
- Hector Bellerin,
- Gabriel,
- Rob Holding,
- Cedric,
- Calum Chambers,
- Pablo Mari,
- Kieran Tierney,
- David Luiz,
- Joel Lopez*
- Zane Monlouis*
- Bukayo Saka,
- Dani Ceballos,
- Martin Odegaard,
- Willian,
- Thomas Partey,
- Mohamed Elneny,
- Emile Smith Rowe,
- Granit Xhaka,
- Ryan Alebiosu*
- Ben Cottrell*
- Miguel Azeez*
- Omari Giraud-Hutchinson*
- Charlie Patino*
- Alexandre Lacazette,
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang,
- Nicolas Pepe,
- Reiss Nelson,
- Eddie Nketiah*
- Gabriel Martinelli*
- Folarin Balogun*
- Jordan McEneff*
So 14 of are players marked with an asterisk * are List B players, leaving 22 list A players.
In other words Arsenal (in common with many clubs) have not taken up their full allocation of List A players, having three vacant places, this primarily being because, as with the Premier League rules, we don’t have enough over 21 year old association trained players.
Arsenal are due to play Benfica on 18 February at 8pm in Portugal. with a second leg on 25th February at 5.55pm.
However…
Covid 19 regulations in the United Kingdom and Portugal mean that the games are unlikely to be played in England or Portugal, which rather interferes with the whole essence of the cup. Anyone arriving in the UK from Portugal is currently required to quarantine for 10 days.
Although players have previously been given an exemption to quarantine rules the government has decided not to do this, this time. The fact that it is Arsenal involved is said to have nothing to do with the decision not to give an exemption. It will be interesting to see if England internationals are disrupted in the same way.
It is up to the home club to find a location for the game in each case. Arsenal can except the full support of everyone in football in finding a suitable venue that does not reduce their chances of getting through. (That sentence was not meant to be taken seriously). The newspapers and other media will be covering Arsenal’s problems fully (ditto).
wait for it and, cue the Headlines about our bloated Europa league squad
It’s on the news also that Liverpool are facing same issue because Germany has also imposed strong rules in relation to the pandemic, removing special free pass for Athletes coming or going out of Germany and England has been put on the red list. This call into right question that life is far more important than sport.
Hope all this resolved because it will have a lot of strain on the players when been forced to play at neutral playing ground.
Yes Laos Gooner, I really don’t know where this “bloated” stuff came from other than it simply being the word everyone throws in front of the word squad without any thought at all