Leeds United want new rules in-place to stop player poaching by bigger Premiership clubs.

Leeds chief executive, Shaun Harvey, has launched a crusade against schoolboy-player poaching by the Premier League's biggest clubs, using last night's England team to prove his point.

Harvey, insisting that young players can thrive in the Football League, points out that, of the starting 11 against Belarus, four made their league debuts at that level: David James at Watford, Matthew Upson at Luton Town, Theo Walcott with Southampton and Frank Lampard at Swansea City. Had Ashley Cole (Crystal Palace) been fit, it would have been almost half the team.

"If the Premier League clubs think their players are good enough they'll go on loan to the Football League anyway," he told the Guardian.

Uefa is in talks with the European Commission in an effort to close down transfers of minors across international borders but it will not force domestic bodies to implement the equivalent action. Harvey, who challenged Chelsea's chief executive, Bruce Buck, at a conference last week over his club's youth-recruitment policy, believes it is time for the Football Association to act.

"The player must sign his first professional contract with the club who develop him so that if they sell him at 17 years old they can commercially negotiate a fee," said Harvey. "Otherwise Football League clubs will start shutting their academies."