Ferguson calls for quotas

United boss gives his backing to Fifa plans

By Chris Burton   Last updated: 7th December 2007

Alex Ferguson

Ferguson: Backing quotas

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Sir Alex Ferguson wants a quota system introduced to prevent the demise of home-grown players.

A leaked report from the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) has backed the idea of having a 'balanced' policy, where home-produced players play alongside those from abroad.

Ferguson has always been a strong believer in nurturing his own stars, and whilst he admits that European employment laws make it difficult to implement such ideas, he has given his backing to the scheme where a club is required to have a certain number of domestic players within their match-day squad.

Agree

"(Michel) Platini and (Sepp) Blatter have been talking about having a quota of home-grown players and I totally agree with that," the Manchester United boss said.

"They say it can't be done because of employment law, but if you have a certain number of English players in your squad, you could still have foreign players.

"Whether it could be applied, or agreed to by all clubs, I am not so sure. But there would be nothing wrong with it."

Parochial

Ferguson did however criticise the current ruling which prevents clubs from signing players who live more than 90 minutes travel time away. This, he believes, is one of the major factors behind so many teams turning to foreign youngsters.

"The system is restrictive and parochial because, from a certain area, we are expected to produce players, year after year, of the quality needed for Manchester United," he complained.

"It is the same for any top club, so what has happened over the last few years is that we have has to look abroad.

"We have to look abroad, as we did with Giuseppe Rossi and Gerard Pique, simply because we need to maintain a high standard of young players at our football club."

Taylor

Gordon Taylor, PFA chief executive, agrees with Ferguson and believes that it is up to the governing bodies to change the rules to ensure home-grown players are allowed to make their mark.

"We are not objecting to clubs bringing in young foreign players to their academies, because there is a level playing field there for young English players," Taylor said.

"We are saying though that we need to encourage youth development so that home-grown players irrespective of nationality have a better chance.

"Uefa have a rule that eight players in the 25-man squad for European competitions must be home-grown.

"We would like to see this extended that so at least three or four in the team, have come through the club's development programme."