The Football Association has announced proposals to cut the number of players from outside the European Union coming into the English game by up to 50 percent.
Some 122 overseas players were granted visas between 2009 and 2013, 23 of them in the Football League.
The FA is proposing only Premier League clubs be allowed to sign non-EU players, and also be prevented from sending them out on loan, as part of a number of changes recommended by FA chairman Greg Dyke's England Commission.
Furthermore, only players from the top 50-ranked countries in the world could be signed unless the transfer fee is more than a fixed figure, either 10 or 15 million pounds.
An FA statement said: "The defined criteria are designed to result in visas only for those elite sportspeople who are internationally established at the highest level [and] whose employment will make a significant contribution to the development of their sport at the highest level in the UK."
The appeals system would also be toughened up so that clubs can only appeal on the basis of incorrect process -- currently nearly 80 percent of all appeals are successful and tribunals are often asked to make subjective judgments on playing ability.
The ruling would apply to all players from Brazil, Argentina, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australasia who do not hold EU passports.
The proposals are contained in an FA consultative paper -- which it is required to produce under Home Office rules -- and it will now hold talks with the Premier League, Football League, PFA, LMA and the national FAs of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
One change would make it slightly easier for the best non-EU players to gain work permits by reducing from 75 percent to 30 percent the number of competitive international matches that non-EU players from countries in the top 30 must have played in the previous two years.
The system, called the Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) process, was introduced by the Home Office in 2008 to allow sports governing bodies to each manage a system for endorsing visa applications of elite players from non-EU countries.