Blatter and others wanted to bring a rule that limits the number of foreign players in any starting line-up to 5. Since the EU looks like it would block such a rule, the proposal now seems unlikely to succeed. Good thing or bad thing?

The one benefit I could see it bringing is that it would weaken the team inequality caused partly by the fact that only a few teams in any league have regular access to Champions League football (and its money). The Champions League is largely responsible for accentuating inequalities in many leagues, particularly leagues such as the Scottish league and the Norwegian league, but also the English league, where the same few teams use their champions league finances and profile to consolidate and extend the advantages they happened to have had when the Champions League got going.

It also would reduce the impact money has. Yeah, you can use your money to can superiority over other teams, but as you could only play 5 foreigners, no team would ever be able to build up a world 11. We could see the old days back when the likes of Steau Bucharest, Red Star Belgrade, Ajax, Dynamo Kiev and other such national youth development focused teams had a genuine chance of winning honors, as well as more competitive domestic leagues. I could see it helping Scottish teams, as most Scottish teams including Rangers and Celtic these days are mostly Scottish ... though Hearts would be ruined by it.

I honestly think it is a ridiculous proposal though. Why should a team from Scotland or from Denmark or any other small country be forced to choose from a narrower range of players that a Spanish, English or Italian team just because the political boundaries of those places include more people?

It would reck the English league and reduce it to the mediocrity that characterised it for most of the 90s. I don't believe the "foreigners prevent player development" crap. Surely working with better players will improve any native players in a team. After all, most EPL managers would prefer English players if they had a choice, but if Portsmouth say can get say a Gabonese player twice as good as English player, why should they be forced to go for the English player? It won't help Portsmouth or the English player. I've got a feeling this is the old blame foreigners for our trouble scenario. Since the England team are doing badly, naturally who else can be to blame but foreigners. And lo, the English national team was obviously so much more successful in the early 1990s when the EPL had few foreigners. :lol:

But it's not just some sectors in England that want this. So is there anything to it?

They have a rule like this in Turkey IIRC. Fenerbache (sp?) just naturalized their Brazilians.

It would be a good rule. Though IMO it shouldn't be limited to countries. It would be better if Scandinavian players wouldn't be foreign in Scandinavian teams. Englishmen wouldn't be foreign for a Scottish team. Bosnians wouldn't be foreing for Serbian team.

With that rule foreign legions like Arsenal(and AC Oulu in Finland, once 10 foreign players, mostly African and South American, played in one game, which is quite extraordinary here) would be forced to use local players.

As usual, I disagree with James Lawton: a quota on foreign players is a bad idea. Here's his argument for a quota, and Glenn Moore's argument against, if anyone's interested:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2853828.ece

By the way, foreign can only mean from outside the EU, otherwise it's against European regulations. So that makes the whole thing even more pointless.

I don't think it'll make a difference to be honest. it'll never come into effect because of labor laws. As soon as you say that you won't hire more than x amount lawyers will be battering on your door etc etc etc.

An interesting note regarding foreigners is that Scotland really suffered from foreign players a few years back. You had teams like Rangers and Celtic playing with NO Scottish players (there was once an Old Firm game where I think there was 1 Scot on the field, not including the ref obviously)

Anyway, what happened was that the issue of money started to rise up and alot of teams stopped buying the huge foreign players and now, the big teams, have started to limit the foreigners they buy themselves, instead focusing more on young Scottish talent. Rangers, Celtic currently have new training fascilities for their first team and youth development and Hibs are building one and it even has a knock on effect where you've got a Scottish core at the center of your team, playing week in, week out and it's actually helping the national team.

Scotland are soaring at the moment compared to what it was like a few years ago when we were drowning in foreign players when our squad was aging and youth wasn't getting a shot.

Foreigners can be very bad in football but then again, football isn't about nationality, it's about playing to win, the beautiful game so to speak, and if you can increase your chances of winning by bringing in someone from a different coutnry then go for it, but just don't forget your youth development.

If the proposal was to force English teams to play 6 English players in each squad then it would be a terrible idea as there are not many teams in the premiership that would have a hope of playing 6 English players which would further inflate the prices for average English players.

Something like Hitti-Litti's idea would make a lot more sense although it would still probably make sense to introduce a smaller quota.

Well, I come from one of the countries which suffered the most of the Bosman ruling. Indeed, French football started to really wake up during the early 90's. French clubs were regularly reaching European Cups semi-finals, finals, and even started winning European titles.

Unfortunately, after the victory at the World Cup 1998, it became trendy for the richest clubs to consider the French championship as a grocery store where it was easy to find quality recruits. Actually, I'm sure this has helped French football at the national team level, as our players earned an experience without which the team wouldn't have reached the success it is known today for.

But anyway, the consequence has been to vastly empoverish the French championship. Meanwhile, the Olympique Lyonnais has never helped at all considering it has as policy to never sell any of its players to any French clubs (particularly the richer ones such as Paris and Marseille). As a result, I believe the French championship has never reach a lower level as today since the 70's. French ligue 1 is today nothing more than a nursery where the best players of French clubs leave the French championship the year they are discovered.

But despite that, I'm against quotas of foreign players. Indeed, I consider that if French clubs aren't able to devellop quality sides by themselves, there's no reason to help them with some protectionnist policies. I guess I'm too much pro-EU to accept something I would consider as a backward move.

Actually, I would go as far as supporting the idea of a Euroleague if that could lead to an even stronger feeling of European citizenship among people. The only reason why I'm against the Euroleague is because I believe playoff games are more thrilling to determine the European champion. As such, I consider the Champions league as it is now to be funnier than would ever be a Euroleague.

I like this rule.In Turkey,only 6 foreign players are in starting line up and 1 foreign player sits on the bench.If this substitute comes into play,another foreigner must out.Because of this rule Beşiktaş converted one Brazilian(M.Nobre)and Fenerbahçe converted 2 Brazilians(G.Wederson and M.Aurelio(he plays actually for our national team too)).Galatasaray is trying to convert Lincoln.:)
If CL has this rule too,I would love it.Then we will not concede 8 goals in a match.Maybe 5,but no 8:p
IMO the rule can support weaker teams.:)

and while we're at it send the blacks back to africa :p
no

I wouldn't like it, since such a rule would hurt Australian soccer.

There is a quota (just not on foreign players) already in place in the SPL and that's each team must have 3 players in the squad under the age of 21. but some big teams are trying to change that cause what that does is essentially have your normal squad with 3 young players warming the bench game in game out but I still think it's a good idea to try to promote youth development.

I'm surprised not that many support such a quota.
How wonderful it would be IMO to have once mighty AJAX, BENFICA, CELTIC, etc be competitive again. Get them to retain their best players and they would achieve that again (ok, maybe not for Scotland just now). I think the CL would be even more fun if teams from leagues now depleted of their best players could rival those of the big 3, like they used to do pre-Bosman.
This has to be sorted on an EU level, hence Platini's letter to the European leaders.

dutchfire nailed it. you can only regulate the non-eu-member-players. anything else wouldnt stand a chance in front of a court. that fact makes it absurd to consider a limitation of players as an option.

but you could phrase the idea different: instead of limiting foreign players in a team, you could force the teams to put a certain number of autochthon players in their starting line-up. so a club in say austria needs to play with at least 7 austrian players.

or would that be challenged as discrimination as well?

I'm surprised not that many support such a quota.
How wonderful it would be IMO to have once mighty AJAX, BENFICA, CELTIC, etc be competitive again. Get them to retain their best players and they would achieve that again (ok, maybe not for Scotland just now). I think the CL would be even more fun if teams from leagues now depleted of their best players could rival those of the big 3, like they used to do pre-Bosman.
This has to be sorted on an EU level, hence Platini's letter to the European leaders.

Well, there are more Scottish players registered to play in the Champions League this year than English players ... and they have 4 teams and ten times the population. The pool of Scottish players is getting larger and stronger. Celtic (and now Rangers) compete well with all but the top European sides with largely Scottish teams, so all they would need would be a bit of luck and a good year. It can happen if your young players emerge at the right time, and soon enough not to get pinched by bigger clubs.

Anyways, if you get rid of the super teams, your Barcelonas, Real Madrids, etc, all those clubs have a strong chance given any year's circumstances. Red Star, Steua, Celtic, Ajax, all won the European cup with players entirely or almost entirely drawn from their own countries. The problem now is that the super teams can take more advantage of their extra money and that teams like Red Star, Celtic and Ajax have to play more than one team from the top league, lowering their chances of getting luck. I.e. you can have two good games with luck and knock out Barcelona and AC Milan, but then you have to play Real Madrid and Juventus. You didn't have to do that before the mid-90s. Before the CL came about, you got one or two ... sometimes three average teams, that took you to the QF or SF, then you had to win two serious games.

E.g.
1R Vejle BK (Den) v Steaua Bucureşti , 1-1, 1-4
2R Budapest Honvéd FC (Hun) v Steaua Bucureşti, 1-0, 1-4
QF Steaua Bucureşti v Kuusysi (Fin), 0-0, 1-0
SF RSC Anderlecht (Bel) v Steaua Bucureşti, 1-0, 0-3
F Steaua Bucureşti 0 – 0 FC Barcelona, St B. won 2-0 on pens

So Steaua won the competition without playing a team from the big five countries until the final, which they won on penalties.

Now, Rangers got to being one point from the final of the Champions League in 1993 (besting the Danish, English, Belgian and Russian champions), and Ajax won it a few years later. But it's the combination of both no foreigner quotas and tougher team competition which has killed a depth of competition.

But having said that, Porto won it a few years ago, so it's not quite dead yet. :goodjob:

What do you mean by saying that Steaua didn't face any team from the big five? They faced Kuusysi! :D

I wouldn't like it, since such a rule would hurt Australian soccer.

I didn't have an opinion until you pointed this out.

Down with nationalist discrimination!

I too doubt that this would work in the court, after all that is the only reason why it was scrapped in the mid-90s.

In principle it would be the best thing ever done since that time, of course. Football was much greater until then. The EU could easily change their laws to allow for it. Not doing so is one main reason to hate it. ;)

Yes get them out, the latin players in particular as they spread the art of "dive and roll" and showing imaginery yellow cards. Foreign players arent all bad, but their participation in the league should br the exception to the rule rather than the norm. My 5 point plan:

1) No foreign players allowed in British youth team.

2) A limit of 8-10 foreigners per squad.

3) Only 4-5 foreign players starting

4) Regional centres of excellence for youth players to avoid long travelling times and give maximum training/playing time.

5) Prevent another Fabregas situation whereby Arsenal literally stole him from the Barca youth academy and only paid minimal compensation.

I dislike the idea of these discriminating quota. Freedom is a big thing, imho, also for football clubs and football players.

What will happen if/when National teams will be considered by the EU as employers of the players who play for them?
Are you ready to see Andorra play with half a dozen Dutch players and a few Italians and win the European cup?
Surely noone can be against this as freedom of workers is a sacred cow that should be respected despite any common sense.:mischief:

Opposed.

My prefered solution to the accumulation of wealth by a handful of clubs is to return European competitions to their former state - one team into the European Cup, one team into the Cup Winners Cup, and a number of teams into the UEFA cup from each country, assuming an adequate level of success.

Certain clubs are assured of being able to amass great wealth because they have gotten themselves into a position where they can virtually guarantee European Cup football every year. By making it more difficult to get into European competition (and allocating the least prize money to the UEFA cup), the number of teams that can be completely confident of regular European competition is reduced. There's also a more gradual step up in wealth from teams that finish highly in the league without European qualification to league winners.

Still, my prefered solution won't happen, or at least not without a period of great turbulence - splinter groups of the top clubs don't look like they can sustain themselves indefinetly to me but they would temporarily come into existence.

I support Platini's suggestion that national cup competition winners should get preference over next-best-placed teams in the league when European places are being assigned. It's not much, but it's a start.