Blatter to ask FIFA for Quotas

Sepp Blatter hates soccer.

This has implications for DC United.

 

All talk, no substance, will never happen

 

Sepp Blatter, a man with no sex life. He is bored.

 

The only American club I could see struggling with this potential rule is Fulham.

 

Mo would be forced to actually work and finding and developing talented domestics at TFC, rather than simply lobbing MLS for rule changes...

 

This would run afoul of both US and EU labor law, where lawful work permit holders must be treated the same as native-born citizens for the purpose of labor and employment.

 

The underlying issue for FIFA is that the sport relies on nationalistic, regional, civic, sectarian, and ethnic rivalries for much of its popularity. The World Cup is the biggest display of nationalism existing in the 21st century. The European game is already a mess with a "federal" labor law trumping the FAs of individual states.

Only by reinforcing the nationalistic character of the sport does the World Cup, FIFA's biggest money-maker, stay relevant.

 

Where does this fall on Sepp's priority list? Above or below redesigning uniforms for the women's game?

 

Player quotas or the lack of same, is the business of the owners, the league and the players association. Sepp needs to keep his nose out of affairs that he has absolutely no control over and shouldn't. If FIFA doesn't watch it, the big clubs and UEFA are going to hand them their heads. Is this just a disguised move to try to get more Englishman into their own league? Whether a man can get a job playing soccer should not be left in the hands of a corrupt, bureaucratic tool sitting in an office in Switzerland. It is a local matter, a league matter, an immigration matter that should be treated as such.

 

But this rule, as presented in this thread, isn't saying you can't sign players, only that your starting 11 must have X amount of natives in it.

I suppose its a problem for any league with a roster size cap, as you could be forced to take a native over an international in order to have the minimum required, but if there's no roster cap then there's no limit on who you can sign, just who you use in a game.

Not that I think it gets them around the issues completely, but there is a hole there that they can try to worm through.

 

Worry about your Revs, why doncha.

 

The more I think about it, I think Sepp should write out the starting line ups for every club team on the planet for every game. Basically that's what he is doing anyway or at least wanting to do. Who cares about wining and attractive soccer, as long as Arsenal has 6 starting Englishman in the line up. That's what's good for the game. FIFA needs to get their pp spanked over this one. Why can't they just scalp world cup tickets. Hell that's something that they are good at just ask Jack Warner. I mean it's not like they should be working on technical innovations to the game that would allow an efficient use of instant replay, a better defined offsides rule, working with leagues to weed out corruption and train better refs or anything that remotely has anything to do with how the game is played. They now want to say who plays the game. This is why the US will never takes it's proper place in the world soccer community. Having an inept German sitting in an office in Switzerland with a corrupt, ticket scalping guy from Trinidad, telling people who can and can't make a living playing soccer will never be tolerated by a real American. The hypocrisy and corruption is more than we can bear. So lets say this does happen. What if leagues just say we ain't gonna dance to your tune, we are paying the band not you. What could FIFA really do? What if MLS, EPL,La Liga and the Bundisa liga said no way. Those countries couldn't go to the world cup. Think again. This will never be allowed to happen. I guarantee you that the American owners in the EPL will never be told who they can and can't hire by FIFA, by the EPL and English immigration yes, but not a non EPL / governmental authority.

 

I think a big consequence of this rule, if it were ever enacted and overcame the legal challenges, would be more players not playing for the country of their birth but naturalizing to the nationalities of the richest leagues. Brazilians, Argentinians, and Africans would still want to play where the money is and if it took becoming German, English, etc in order to do so, I think many would. I believe Blatter is also upset at the Eduardo da Silva's of the world, so there would have to be some rule about naturalized players also and I can't see such a rule ever being legal.

 

The rules are different in the Coca Cola league arent they?

 

This is long overdue.

Fulham? No problem. They just need to join MLS as an expansion side.

 

Blatter needs to go on a diet......of sense.

 

I am slowly reaching the point where outside the World Cup I'd be perfectly happy if national team soccer did not exist.

 

This will never happen; if FIFA tries it the G14 will start back up and challenge it in court (and win). The European high court would never allow this, no matter how FIFA paints it, at the end of the day football is just another occupation. You can’t on one hand say that plumbers in the EU can work wherever they want in the union but football players can’t.

 

I am not sure yet how I feel about the exact number (re: 6 players on the field), but the spirit of this idea is great! The Bosman ruling has only been in effect for 12 years. Prior to that, many of the greatest leagues had self-imposed limitations on the number of foreign players. For example, Serie A limited the number of foreign players on the field to 3. That amounted to 8 domestic players on the field, a greater number than what Sepp Blatter is proposing.

I think such limits were in place for good reason; not only to help the respective national teams, but more broadly to help the entire domestic playing pool in general, which means a stronger domestic league and more teams that can compete for the championship.

I also think these kinds of rules help even out the playing field. Lots of people call for salary caps and what not, but a foreign player limit is a much less harsh way of achieving a similar result. When the playing field is evened out, the fans win and the game is healthier. Right now the game is way too top-heavy, which is threatening the viability of the smaller clubs.

- Paul

 

Sure you can. The United States federal government grants baseball an exemption from anti-trust laws. Why do they deserve such an exemption?

- Paul

 

The EU takes a much harder line when it comes to anti-trust laws (just ask microsoft). As you have noted it would take an act of the European Parliament for FIFA to get its way and I just can't see that happening.

What about here in the US? If a foreign born player, lets say Jamie Moreno, becomes a citizen would he count as foreign or domestic in FIFA’s eyes? Under US law I believe it would be illegal to discriminate against a citizen based on national origin.

There are just too many potential roadblocks to this; I just can’t ever see it happening.

 

A buffet would be a better choice.

I think that he's been on a permanent diet of common sense.