Foreign quotas in rugby
David Lyons
By CounterRuck
May 30 2008
The news that Sepp Blatter's agenda to place a quota system on foreign players in football has been backed by FIFA, pending inevitable legal challenges, places the invariable question of whether the International Rugby Board will follow suit and try and stem the flow of southern hemisphere players into European rugby.
David Lyons a former Wallaby number eight is just one example of the non-Welsh signatures picked up by Llanelli Scarlets on a four-year contract, which is perfectly in line with the agreement between the regions and WRU to be restrict non-Welsh qualified squad members to just six. The regions must also contend with Magners League rules that specify a maximun of two non-EU players in every match-day squad, this is not as limiting as it sounds sounds due to the varying associate agreements countries such as South Africa have with the union.
Should a Welsh side turn round and wish to sign say sign seven South Africans as an example in the future, there would be little the WRU legally could do stop them other than through threats of withdrawing funding.
Are too many foreigners a bad thing for the Welsh game? Yes and no. A Heineken cup squad is 36 players, and to suggest we have that much depth would be absurd, also by capping the number of foreign players it pushed the wages of Welsh players up to the extent that only the Ospreys can afford to put together a squad full of them, and the likes of Matthew Watkins a good squad player is allowed to leave for England as Welsh sides are simply not willing to match his wages as most of the budget is spent on key players such as Stephen Jones.
Fifa are proposing a quota on home-grown players in every European League.
"It's to make sure that there is better balance in the competitions and not only three or four teams in a league of 18 or 20 are fighting to be the champion and all the others are just there to not be relegated,"
Reportedly in this interview, Blatter is keen to work with other sports, however it would be very much up to new IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset as to whether to follow such a precedent.
I think in rugby's case it is more about preserving some parity between All Blacks heading up North early in their career and youngsters still being at least given a realistic chance to develop in professional rugby in Europe and not entirely because of their nationality.
Would a quota system on foreign players be good for rugby? Have your say on our forum, or by filling in the box below.
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The artist formerly known as Lestyn.
For the clubs to be competitive throughout the season they need to bring in some foreign experience, this can benefit younger players.
But we don't want it getting out of control and for the imports just to be brought in cause they are cheaper than bringing someone through the academy system.
For England and France there are enough clubs for it not to be a problem for the national team, although it does leave them a little understrength in certain positions after a few injuries which should never happen with nations of that size.
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