Former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez says English football will benefit from new laws allowing Premier League clubs to recruit juniors from anywhere in the UK.

Benitez wrote in The Independent: "I have been advocating for several years that clubs should be allowed to recruit young players from anywhere and that change, now allowed for in the Premier League EPPP document, cannot come soon enough. At Real Madrid, we trialled hundreds of boys a year from Madrid and all over Spain. If the best cannot work with the best, they will not progress.

"I don't think England should be too worried about the number of overseas players in the Premier League. The country's young footballers can learn from those players, their different styles and ideas. And I don't think that the 4-4-2 system which Roy Hodgson used at the European Championship will prevent technically talented players being put to best use for the national side. The 4-4-2 style can become 4-2-3-1 when a team attacks. It's the football philosophy that counts, not the system."