Aston Villa face Champions League complication as UEFA confirm limit after five January signings
Aston Villa must submit their updated Champions League squad for the knockout rounds by the end of Thursday night.
Villa will be allowed to register 21 players who are not 'club-trained' in their 25-man Champions League squad. Jacob Ramsey will be one of the four 'club-trained' players, but Villa do not have to register another three, it just means they will have less options to call on.
Four players of the 21 must be 'association-trained', which will be Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa, Ross Barkley and Ollie Watkins, for instance. It leaves Villa with 17 players who do not have to be classed as 'homegrown'.
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Another complication for the knockout rounds is that UEFA have confirmed to BirminghamLive that Villa will only be allowed to register three new players to their updated squad. Unai Emery welcomed five new players in the winter window, Donyell Malen, Andres Garcia, Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and Axel Disasi.
Here’s what the UEFA rules say…
32.01 - After the completion of the league phase and before the start of the knockout phase, a club may register a maximum of three new eligible players for the remaining matches in the current competition. Such registrations must be completed by 6 February 2025 (24:00 CET) at the latest.
32.02 - Exceptionally and without prejudice to Paragraph 32.01 , clubs participating in domestic championships that start and end in the same calendar year are entitled to additional player registrations in the following cases:
If more than five players on the club's List A are no longer registered with their national association as playing for the club concerned after completion of the league phase and before the start of the knockout phase, the club may register one additional player, i.e. a total of four new eligible players, for the remaining matches in the current competition.
Villa manager Unai Emery may be asked about which players he has left out of his squad on Friday afternoon, before the squads will be made official in the coming days.
