Have just heard on the radio that UEFA are proposing to limit the number of foreign players in Champions League teams to 50 percent. Though any player who has been with his club for more than three years can count as ‘home-grown’, this is still very, very bad news. David Dein is said to be going bananas.
Reyes, Cesc, Senderos, van Persie, Clichy, Flamini, Quincy, Lupoli, Eboue . . . all our bright young hopes for the future: will they now want to go home? It would be hard to blame them, especially Cesc, Reyes and Lupoli, since the chances of Arsenal doing well in the CL would be drastically reduced. The Italian and Spanish clubs, by contrast, who have a wealth of young home-grown talent to draw on, will be pretty much guaranteed to take the trophy year after year. They are going to be the ones who’ll gain from this ruling. The English, who seem not to be currently producing young players, are going to win nothing at all.
The worst of it, to my mind, is that we don’t yet know when - or even WHETHER - this ruling is going to come into effect. How then can we plan for the future? Should we make an offer for Robert Green and Ledley King or take a risk on a keeper and defender from outside the UK? And what about strikers, of which there don’t seem to be any of promise in England, with the possible exception of David Bently - thank goodness he’s ours! - and Bradley Wright-Phillips.
Never mind. At least Man City can now demand 40 million for Shaun Wright-Phillips, as opposed to the 20 million they were asking before. And, of course, Chelsea will be hit even harder than us. Won’t that be nice? Very satisfying to see Abramovic’s pleasures and power so severely curtailed, though personally I’d be sorry if Mourinho and Benitez decided to leave - the Premiership would be a duller, sadder place without them.
11 Responses to “Scary UEFA Proposal”
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December 17th, 2004 at 12:21 am
Cesc, Lupoli, Quincy & Senderos would count as home grown as they signed their 1st pro contracts with us. van Persie, Flamini (possibly), Eboue, Toure would count as foreigners. Not as bad as it seems, though still not ideal. All it will take is a few rich clubs to challenge this ruling if it come in in the courts. Goes against European labour laws. Wait and see I say.
December 17th, 2004 at 1:14 am
The proposal is that 8 out of 25 on the squad must have come through the team’s youth team, or another youth team in the same country. Since Senderos, Cesc, Flamini, Quincy, etc. signed with our youth team as their first pro contract, they would count among the 8. Reyes and RvP would not, obviously. Anyway, it’s a lame idea and probably won’t get adopted, but 8 out of 25 is not too onerous.
December 17th, 2004 at 3:46 am
The whole thing is a legal nightmare and will probably not succeed when it is discussed in February.
From what I understand of employment law, any citizen of the EU can work within any country in the EU, no problem. If UEFA tried to stop this they will be taken to court for any number of reasons under any number of laws. They might be successul with restricting the number of North/South Americans, Africans, Asians.
I can’t see it happening, it’s just more bollocks from UEFA.
December 17th, 2004 at 5:31 am
I agree with Kevin, can’t see it really happening. There are too many factors in it to take into consideration, it’s not a game that u can just decide to change everything when u feel want to. UEFA and FIFA are genius who tend to come up with fantasy idea which doesn’t work in reality [remember the World Cup every 2 years suggestion by Sepp Blatter?].
And the ruling really goes through, it would further up push the so-called G-14 to break away from FIFA and UEFA to form a elite group all by themselves. It’s all about money right now.
December 17th, 2004 at 6:21 am
Bayern! They won’t be pleased.
Chelsea, hee hee, have Barca, and the Manure - Oh I could sing - have Milan. Liverpool have Beyer, which isn’t too bad.
We must must must improve the defence.
Miranda
December 17th, 2004 at 8:45 am
Kelvin
Since when have the rules of the football world complied with the rest of the outside world?
How many other industries do you know who give their employees contracts for 5 years and when they sack them for not doing their job properly also give them a golden handshake?
I agree that I can?t see it being passed but football is a strange beast and anything could happen. Who would have thought that the Bosman rule would ever be allowed? Didn?t Pele once say that football is a simple game; well the governing bodies are slowly trying to disprove that theory.
December 17th, 2004 at 9:27 am
True, but the Bosman ruling was because of the EU laws, that’s why I can’t see this happening.
December 17th, 2004 at 12:22 pm
I don’t know why you think the Italian or Spanish teams would have a better time of it than English? Real Madrid has exactly how many Spaniards playing for them? What about Barcelona? They import lots of players from Brazil and Argentina into Spain and Italy.
I don’t see anyone benefiting from this among the top teams. They all import talent from outside their own countries and outside Europe.
As for this actually going through, I agree with Kelvin that it is highly unlikely this would pass the European Court’s muster. The EU labor laws are quite specific about quotas based on European country of origin.
December 17th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
Sure, everyone imports players but England imports more. Percentage of indigenous players in top-level football:
La liga 70.4
Serie A 68.5
EPL 38.6
I was thinking in particular of strikers, of which Italy seems to have a greater wealth of up and coming talent than anyone else. In England, unless there are emerging young stars in the lower divisions who I don’t know of, there are comparatively few.
Miranda
December 17th, 2004 at 2:10 pm
If the three year rule applies then i think we might be safe as by the time the law will be passed, most of our foreign talent will have served 3 years at the club.
And as incompetent as UEFA/FIFA do sometimes tend to be, i think they will give clubs a transition period. it is definitely a law that can’t be passed on and implemented overnight
So if I wouldn’t worry too much.. not as yet anyway
December 17th, 2004 at 7:01 pm
And some Europeans call us xenophobic?