Influx of players into the eL from cross channel?

**pete** · 09/05/2002, 3:00 PM

The collapse of television deals for the Nationwide League in England and north of the border has created financial chaos among the clubs. An exclusive Guardian survey has revealed that nearly a quarter of those leagues' workforce can expect to be looking for work this summer. Printed here is a club-by-club guide to the players who have been and who are likely to be released by their clubs.

see list at the guardian

Some massive exoduses (spelling) once you drop to the lower divisions. I'd say we've just seen the end of young irish players joining english 3rd divisions clubs on apprenticises.

**A face** · 09/05/2002, 4:26 PM

That can only be good news for us, It hopefully will mean that there will be a bigger pool of players available for our national league, and if players want ot go aboard then they will have to perform over here first .... Are the FAI/clubs putting a player retention plans in place.

**pete** · 09/05/2002, 5:08 PM

What seems to be emerging over the last while is that most players coming back to Ireland after a couple of seasons of english reserve football find it fairly hard to break into eL first teams.

At this stage unless a player has played a good few 1st team games (in whatever division) I wouldn't be too optimistic of the standard.