My understanding is that we now have a points based immigration system that is equally applied around the world, whether you are in Germany or Ghana, whereas before signing from within the EU would have been easier.

The points based system applies across all sectors, unless the govt choose to loosen them in certain circumstances, such as if there was a nursing shortage or a lack of fork lift truck drivers or -theoretically-footballers.

It seems like a heck of a process to asign points for many different sectors, but I assume that points are accumulated based on different factors like salary, age, qualifications etc. That may be easier if talking about nurses, but probably harder to define for footballers. I guess the nearest to a qualification a footballer has is the league they are playing in, which would fit with SteMo's comment that it's easier to buy from the top leagues rather than lower down, the general principle being that the UK will take "the best from abroad" or otherwise you "hire or train up people locally". Sounds better for bricklayers or plumbers than footballers I suppose, but I guess thats the principle.

Edit: More on it here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football...selling%20club.