The invasion!!!

[Basti]

Article from www.soccernet.com

I particulary enjoyed the last 2 quotes


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German chief blasts foreign invasion


BERLIN, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The president of the German FA has criticised the high number of foreign players in the German league, saying they are harming the national side because they are taking away opportunities for home-grown talent.

'It has nothing to do with racism,' DFB President Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder said on Wednesday. 'But 60 percent is simply too much,' he added, referring to the percentage playing in the first division.

'The percentage of foreigners is worrisome and bad for the national team,' he told journalists in Gravenbruch, near Frankfurt, where Germany are preparing for Euro 2004 qualifying matches against Iceland and Scotland.

Mayer-Vorfelder, 70, also criticised a German football league (DFL) rule allowing Bundesliga clubs five non-European Union foreigners. The DFB, which operates the German Cup, has imposed limits of three non-EU foreigners per side, he said.

Mayer-Vorfelder told reporters a rule requiring German clubs to have at least 12 German players was being circumvented. He said some clubs were putting 45-year-old assistant coaches on their rosters as active players in order to meet the quota.

He said Germany trainer Rudi Voeller supported him fully.

'If Voeller can only pick from a crop of 40 players from a nation of 80 million, it's just not enough,' Mayer-Vorfelder said. 'I hope we can find a consensus. In other countries it's been possible.'

Mayer-Vorfelder has said he wanted to bring the matter to the attention of European football governing body UEFA in the hope of reaching a Europe-wide settlement.

But Bayern Munich commercial manager Uli Hoeness said any limits on foreigners would be nonsense.

'If that's the consequence, then there's no need for national teams anymore,' he said. 'We live in a globalised world. We want to be Europeans. We have to accept the fact that we cannot exclude anyone.'

Voeller rejected Hoeness's remarks.

'The most important team in the country is and remains the national team and not Bayern Munich,'

[bkn0528]

60%? wow - that's pretty high. anyone know what the figure is for the other major euro leagues?

[olafgb]

Originally posted by Basti


Mayer-Vorfelder, 70, also criticised a German football league (DFL) rule allowing Bundesliga clubs five non-European Union foreigners. The DFB, which operates the German Cup, has imposed limits of three non-EU foreigners per side, he said.


I love this part. The reason why DFB is having a three non-EU-foreigner limit is because they were sleeping and did forget to update the rule according to DFL standards. That's the old regulation, this has nothing to do with an imposed limit.

kicker recently had the numbers of the other European top leagues - they were lower, about 30 to 40% foreigners I think.

The problem is that we are talking about an artificial topic. The mistakes were made several years ago when nobody cared for youth work, and the result can be seen today. Germany won't have numerous new talents by restricting the number of foreigners - the ones coming up are the fairly talented guys from D2, but no NT material (and if you force the clubs to use Germans, then you put the average players into the great negotiation position that they are needed for any price). Since a few years the youth support got much better and this will be seen in the future. Already now we got a nice bunch of newcomers like Kuranyi, Lauth, Rau, Schlicke, Wiese, Marx, Lapaczinski, Balitsch or Jones, who all were born 1981 or later. An artificial change today would not improve the situation. And after all, the Germans always act like Germany is the only open market, but in fact the whole world is globalized (the word somehow tells it...) and the foreign markets are open for Germans, who feel to have bad chances in their own country.

[Germanshepherd]

Originally posted by olafgb
Already now we got a nice bunch of newcomers like Kuranyi, Lauth, Rau, Schlicke, Wiese, Marx, Lapaczinski, Balitsch or Jones, who all were born 1981 or later.

You missed Marco Vorbeck!

[afgrijselijkheid]

and steinschweiger

[Elninho]

As of August 2002, which was the last time I checked, the EPL was 57% foreign.

[roarksown1]

Won't your most talented youth players rise to the top of the bunch anyway? And if they don't, they probably don't deserve a look on the National Team anyway. Michael Ballack is a great player and is playing week in and week out (barring injury) because he is a great footballer, not because he's from Uganda or South Korea. If a German youth player is better than some foreigner that comes along, he'll be playing - plain and simple. The problem of course is when players are on level terms and some Bulgarian kid is willing to take half the pay and be thankful for it. But we're talking about the German National Team here, so they're only taking the top players, and they're not affected by the number of foreigners in the league.

Ironically, here in the land of the free, only three foreigners are allowed on any team, much like the old rules in the Bundesliga before Bosman...

[domingo]

Oh ja! The good old days before Bosman. When the clubs could profit from producing a good player.
@ roarksown1

Maybe you are right with the nationalteam, but for the other players it´s not easy to get a place in the team (imagine, only 40% germans).

[Frankfurt Blue]

even worse in the English Premiership. However, depends how you look at it. You might get a greater choice of players long term through immigration for the national squad.

[JeffS]

Germany used to produce so many quality players. Now the talent pool is getting more and more shallow.

I agree with Olaf. In this day and age having limits on foreigners will not help the situation. It would only over-inflate the values of mediocre German players, not make them any better. Olaf made the point of how German clubs somewhat abandoned their youth systems not long ago, and the mid to late nineties talent that came out reflected that.

Now, particularily since the mediocre to bad performances of the German NT through much of the nineties and the 2000 Euro cup, they are starting to re-emphasize their youth systems. Kuranyi, Lauth, Rau, etc. are evidence of this. When this new crop of players mature, German might just rise in prominence once again.

So the real answer is for the Bundesliga Clubs and the DFB to seriously promote the youth system. They need to re-double their efforts to make it better and better. If they do that, perhaps clubs from other leagues will raiding BL teams for hot young German prospects, much like Wolfsburg got D'Allasandro and Bayern is after Tevez. And German clubs will be clamoring for each other's hot prospects, and, in turn, limits on foreign players becomes irrelevant.

[DennisM]

Good grief. Are they continue to complain like the Italians did after 1966? Like they really needed to use just Italians in their league when they had some of the best clubs in Europe, which unlike a decade before, had mostly Italian stars. The Germans made it to the World Cup final. Sure, it was one of the worst teams to make it. But they did get to the World Cup.

[CanuckFan2]

Regarding development of the youth players, this new A-Junioren Bundesliga looks to be a good step. Now the top U19 teams get better opposition week after week.