By Jon Steer
September 28 2005

From next season, English county clubs will be penalised for fielding non-England qualified players. These penalties will grow in 2007 to a level which would have cost Durham in excess of £100,000 this season. For the first time next season the money that every county club receives from the ECB will be partly dependent on the number of England qualified playes that the county fields in each game. To avoid challenges in the European court the grant is officially in return for the club providing the ECB with video analysis of potential England players.

In the 2006 season the grant will be worth £85 per player per day a figure that will more than triple to £275 for the 2007 season. Put another way, this will mean that fielding a non-England qualified player for the entire 2007 season (a minimum of 17 one day games and 16 championship matches) would reduce the maximum grant available to the club by £22,275.

When you consider that this season Durham regularly fielded five non qualified players including Hussey, Lewis, Noffke, Breese, Benkenstein, Mayer, Thorp and Williams the sum is then in excess of £100,000. Even for 2006 the cost will be over £35,000.

This is bound to bring up some unpleasant issues - when selecting the team for a particular match will the coach be allowed to pick the best eleven or will he have to restrict himself to two or three non qualified players to preserve the clubs income.

Derbyshire have already stated that they will aim to field nine England qualified playes whenever possible next season as they cannot afford the drop in income that not doing so would bring about.

Currently Durham have captain Mike Hussey contracted for until the end of next season and South African Dale Benkenstein has completed his first year of a three year contract. Durham are reportedly trying to sign Mick Lewis as their second overseas player for next season after he impressed as cover for the injured Ashley Noffke.

No doubt that we will see more appearances by the up and coming Durham youngsters and Academy players from next season rather than last minute overseas replacements such as Mayer and Williams.