Budget Boosts West Ham's Transfer Kitty!

Alistair Darling has announced that from next month any player aged over thirty years old can be exchanged for £2,000,000 against the price of a replacement.

The scrap scheme, which was unveiled during the 2009 budget speech in parliament, is designed to help encourage regeneration of football squads in the Premiership. £300billion will be ploughed into scrapping our old nags, and the scheme will end by March 2010 - or whenever the funds run out.

The first question owners of older players will ask is, of course, "How do I scrap my Boa-Morte?" In order to qualify for scrapping your old nag, it must be useless on the ball, weigh more than 13 stone 5 pounds, be registered as a player in the UK before 1st August 1999, be on record with the FA and, crucially, must have been with the current owner for more than one year.

To scrap your player, you must also hold a valid health certificate for it - which the Government has insisted on working into the scrap scheme to prevent owners of forgotten, rusty heaps like Freddie Ljungberg scrapping them for unfair profit. Furthermore, there's no limit on the ability rating of the player purchased in any deal, which is thought to be a move to help sales of high performance luxury players - like Kaka and Ronaldo for example. Participating clubs will handle the whole process from start to finish: filling out the paperwork and taking the old clapped out player to be scrapped, with no significant delays expected.

The move means that, for example,less than average ability 32 -year-old duds like Luis Boa-Morte and Nigel Quashie, who are currently worth pennies on the transfer market, will now be worth a cool £2,000,000 each to their lucky owners. However, it also means than many perfectly good, serviceable players will be scrapped in favour of a new player, which the PFA claims will prematurely shorten playing careers.

That said, the Society of Premier League Clubs has already voiced its approval of the scheme, with chief executive Paul Everitt saying: "This is good news for the fans and will kick-start squad renewal. Clubs such as West Ham United will be mightily relieved that at last they can off load the dead wood in their squad and raise finance into the bargain."