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Join the Sky Sports debate on Fifa's bid to limit the number of foreign players in each team.
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Comments (99)
Paul Maguire (Manchester United fan) says...
Its funny how the strongest arguments against this are coming from Liverpool and Arsenal fans. I wonder why!!! To those that say we just need to invest more in grass routes football, I couldn't agree more. I think the proposals by FIFA would go a long way towards achieving that greater investment. Clubs wouldn't have the option of investing elsewhere for a quick fix of a player and therefore would have no choice but to improve their youth academies
Posted 21:34 30th May 2008
Phil West says...
Great rule, about time, lets have young English players getting a chance rather than these cheaper foreign imports
Posted 21:20 30th May 2008
Mike Razavi (Arsenal fan) says...
This is known as too much bureaucratic intervention. It seems that Fifa is upset at the Premiership's dominance. Fifa should stick to international football only, before they destroy league football in every country. It seems Fifa is trying to run football like a government runs a country. It is time that local bodies such as the FA stood up and took a stand.
Posted 21:15 30th May 2008
Nick Taylor (Arsenal fan) says...
This is an absolutely ridiculous idea. Forcing clubs to play more english players, will not actually make a difference to developing English talent. More investment is needed in the sport for children still at school for this to happen. Better pitches, more opportunity for coaching etc.etc. If the English players out there are good enough, they will play. To suggest anything other than for each manager to play the strongest side they have available, regardless of nationality, is ridiculous..and basically racist.
Posted 21:15 30th May 2008
Andy Smith (Arsenal fan) says...
How many players in the Championship would you pay to see play Premiership football, how many players in the Championship are good enough to play in the Premiership and finally how many Championship players have England caps. That is how good the Idea is and how much it will benefit English Football. The FA needs to spend more money on bringing youngsters through
Posted 21:05 30th May 2008
Oliver Mitchell says...
I agree with D J. Blatter is just jealous of English dominance especially in the Champions League. He even said it in an interview that in the semi finals you have 3 English teams in the semis and the other team doesnt get to the final (which he sounded distraught over). If this 6 plus5 rule comes into place the standard of football in England will drop as there are only so many decent english players and they are overpriced.
Posted 20:40 30th May 2008
Peter Lloyd says...
Everybody seems to want a pop at Arsenal.But we have more english players in our under 21 sides than any other premiership club.So any ruling would effect us,but we do have the backup to compete.
Posted 20:40 30th May 2008
Andrew Stafford says...
let's not forget, would there be all this money in english football today if it was'nt for the influx of foreigners?.
Posted 19:56 30th May 2008
Martin Valkenburg says...
Everyone seems too worried about the clubs. Remember England didn't even qualify for the European Championships because they don't have enough top players playing at the highest level regularly. Are you interested in club success or national success? Blatter's move will help England nationally.
Posted 19:21 30th May 2008
Sarah Byrne (Manchester United fan) says...
well i think this is ridiculous .the only thing it will do is reduce the quality of the premier league .the likeS of man utd will cope but wHat about arsenal ! its not their fault that there is not enough good english players but bringing this in wont improve that . academys should improve more and thats what should be done .we want to increase the quality of the premier league not decrease it ,and this will only puch away the high class foreign footballers who wish to play in this league ,like the likes of ronaldo !! isnt that true ???
Posted 18:58 30th May 2008
Nicholas Coombs (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
I agree 100 percent with Sepp Blatter as the only reason premiership are so good is because they have the money to sign the best foreign players but don't even think their junior teams before doing this. Look what happened to England, they are not in the Euro 2008 because the homegrown players hardly ever get the chance to play apart from the over rated players like Lampard, Rooney or Beckham.
Posted 15:33 30th May 2008
Michael Laidlaw (Chelsea fan) says...
I think this is a terrible idea. Could you just imagine if this was implemented? there are not enough good English players to work with. After all this talk about grass roots football problem in 'State of the Game' reports. That is the real problem with English football. In Holland there are about two pitches per community. In Britain there is about 20 smashed bottles per football pitch!! I am a Chelsea fan and if this rule is implemented the Premiership can say good bye to Arsenal's AMAZING style of football which I think would be the biggest crime in football history because even though I am a Blue I still think watching Arsenal is the best thing to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If English players wan to play they need to get better, its as simple as that. People like Steve Sidwell, Shaun Wright Phillips who will leave there clubs for the life style and money of playing at Chelsea. If they stayed at there clubs who knows what they could have achieved with regular games. If they reduced the money in football and made it about FOOTBALL then you would find England would be a better team
Posted 15:18 30th May 2008
D J (Arsenal fan) says...
Sepp Blatter is an absolute idiot! The Premier League is one of the best leagues in the world because of the quality of players disregarding nationality. Look at it this way, Man U brought Carrick 16 million whereas Arsenal paid nothing for Cesc and he is by far the better player. You want to close the gap for the BIG FOUR dominance but Rooney cost 30 million at the age of 19. Now can any one outside the four pay such a fee???? NO THEY CANT! Blatter just dislikes English dominance - beacause when Spainish & Italian Clubs where dominating - there was no problem. GET BLATTER TO RETIRE - HE DOESNT HAVE A CLUE! WHAT AN IDIOT!!!
Posted 15:18 30th May 2008
S Jewell (Manchester United fan) says...
It's easy to see who would lose out by this rule - all those players who come from places where there aren't enough other good players to form a realistic team. How many champions league medals would Ryann Giggs have if he had to play in Wales? What would Dwight Yorke have to show for a career spent in football in Trinidad & Tobago? What is not so easily apparent is who would benefit. Certainly not the fans having to watch a lower standard of football and not the managers having to try and hold onto their jobs without being able to buy in the best players. At international level the countries with large populations would be at an advantage (so Brazil's grip on world football would get even tighter) and at club level the main beneficiaries would be the hated AGENTS who could ramp up their commissions til' they were getting paid nearly as much as the players.
Posted 15:14 30th May 2008
David Wallace (Manchester United fan) says...
I'm curious - is this plan only going to apply to the Premier League or every European league? If the latter then that is preposterous, unacceptable, outrageous bias. You can't go around handicapping one league because their teams are doing well. However, I fail to see how this is going to affect Manchester United anyway. Either next season or the season after, Foster will be our first choice keeper, we've got two regular English defenders, three regular English midfielders, and a regular English forward. So with seven Englishmen regularly playing, United still won the Champions League...And as for Chelsea, you've got A Cole, Terry, Lampard, J Cole, Bridge, and Wright-Phillips who could easily hold down regular places in the team. So I fail to see how this proposal will change things.
Posted 15:12 30th May 2008
Jake Hartley (Manchester United fan) says...
Surely an adaptation of this rule would be more suited to the Premier League. I thought a 4+7 rule would be better in the sense that the league retains its flair and class that foreign players bring to it. Although at the end of the day, the only team that will dispise the original rule would be arsenal as they only have like 1 english player, other teams could cope with it.
Posted 15:10 30th May 2008
Jack Johnson (Accrington Stanley fan) says...
Its funny how as soon as English teams start to dominate the Champions League FIFA are planning on trying to bring in quotas etc to stop it, but when spain and italy where even though they had a lot of foreign players in their squads, noone was saying anything. Its amazing how biased FIFA actually are against the premiership, could you imagine how badly they would have reacted if there was match fixing in England as oppose to Italy, FIFA would have banned England and their clubs from all sort of competitions. And the slightest bit of football violence that occurs with English teams, FIFA are the first to complain but say nothing when Italian fans throw falres on the pitch etc. Also the fact that a player from the premiership has never won the FIFA world player award... Its quite obvious that they have a clear bias against Engish football and this quota crap just shows it again.
Posted 15:05 30th May 2008
Mike Powell (Liverpool fan) says...
This is ridiculous. If the EU Law is changed on the number of foreign workers in Football, does that mean we're going to see less Polish barbers opening in Liverpool, and less foreign bus drivers around the country? It just makes no sense at all, and seems to be coming about just because Mr. Blatter has nothing else to do! Why shouldn't the best leagues in the world be allowed to attract the best players? So what if it affects that country's national team performance, international football is boring anyway! Fans live for the match on a week to week basis, they're not bothered about ones that come along once every 5 months! This rule borders on racism, fascism and communism. Ludicrous!!!
Posted 15:00 30th May 2008
Harry Boulton (Manchester United fan) says...
People can talk about the legality of this ruling, but FIFA have said very plainly that they will act in accordance with the law so we can assume that nothing illegal will be applied. However, I think both they and the FA should be applauded for dealing with something that has very obviously become an issue in the game of late and needed to be addressed. We cannot afford to have our academy places filled with talent which is not going to benefit the national game. Transfer fees will not soar as a result of this. The aim is to have more English player recruited into the youth schemes INCREASING the number of English players and knocking prices down. English players don't come with a natural premium; they have that because there are non about. This is aimed at increasing those numbers. The likes of Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool need to stop packing their academies out with Brazilians and Argentinians and start recruiting English players like they usaed to..........
Posted 14:57 30th May 2008
David Mackay (Liverpool fan) says...
Why is it that two of the most powerful men in football, Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, seem to have the worst ideas of how to take the sport forward? Who voted these guys in?! It couldn't be more simple and obvious that the reason there aren't a larger number of English players in the Premiership is because there aren't enough English players that are good enough! English clubs have the most money. Money buys quality. The quality of English players in general isn't high enough. This means that when a good (or half-decent for that matter) English player comes to light he'll cost a lot more than a player of the same standard from another country. Some people think that foreign managers prefer foreign players. This is wrong. Make no mistake, if they could buy quality English players that aren't overpriced, they would. Right now only Man Utd and Chelsea can really afford to spend over the odds on English players and not cause damage to themselves in doing so.This rule is such a bad idea its laughable. If people want more English players to choose from for the national squad, how is simply limiting the number of foreign players coming in going to help? Improving the standard of English players might be a better idea. Invest more money and time into grass-roots football. Provide incentives for people to become coaches, and try to make them the best coaches possible. Maybe there is some things to be learnt from coaches from other countries, if there is, get it done. I'm all for having 7 subs, this means managers can have youngsters on the bench. There should be a rule about having a certain number of players under 21 in the squad. If this rule is implemented it WILL lower the quality of the Premiership. I for one am glad Rafa Benitez signed Fernando Torres, maybe if this rule was here a year ago it would've been Dean Ashton...
Posted 14:54 30th May 2008