FIFA's latest daft idea is dead in the water
FIFA top brass
By Stef Jelling
May 30 2008
After UEFA's daft decision to play the Champions League Final in Moscow, world football's governing body FIFA has come up with even dafter idea - to limit the number of foreign players in club teams to five. Not only is it unworkable in a game ruled by money, but in Europe it's illegal. Yet these people have the power to run football all over the world.
This has absolutely nothing at all to do with Hartlepool United, who have a couple of foreign players in keeper Jan Budtz and striker Joel Porter, but it's such a hair-brained scheme that it deserves an airing somewhere on SportNetwork.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, no stranger to daft ideas, wants the "six plus five" principle introduced all over the world, and FIFA's big wigs have voted to endorse the idea and to explore it.
At their meeting in Sydney, the vote was 155-5 in favour of Sepp's soppy idea.
Well, boys, we can save you the bother. Forget it.
Anybody who has had their car cleaned by a Slovakian, their plumbing done by a Pole and their fruit picked by a Latvian can tell you that in Europe, citizens can move freely from country to country and work where they like. If they earn their living playing football, they tend to go where the good money is.
The European Commission says it would be illegal to restrain such freedom and they have no plans to change the law just for Sepp and his mates.
BBC Sports Editor Mihir Bose, who writes as if he thinks he knows everything about all sport, says on the Beeb website: "The congress has merely backed Blatter to explore the idea - nothing more than that.
"The vote was about a wish list and does not represent any rule change.
"He (Blatter) is under no illusions that the Europeans are against it, and that this would fall foul of European law."
Righto, Mihir, so why is he wasting his time on this? And can you explain why they plan to spend money to explore an idea which is illegal when the money would be better spent buying footballs and other gear for kids in Africa and other poor areas of the world where the game is so popular?
And did nobody notice that Man Utd won the Champions League with six English players in the team?
So do the EU:
"The European Commission is showing a red card to the six plus five rule, Vladimir Spidla, the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, said. This would be direct discrimination on the basis of nationality, which is unacceptable. It's a non-starter.
Professional football players are workers, therefore the principle of non-discrimination and the right to free movement apply to them. If EU member states allowed the application of the six plus five rule, they would be in breach of EU law and players who are discriminated against could take the member states to court. And they would win. "
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.
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"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.