This came up in another thread. I know of one club that does not play foreign players. Chivas of Mexico. Are there any other clubs in the world that DO NOT allow foriegners on the team?
Athletic Bilbao only has Basques. Talk about a limited talent pool! They have had their share of good players though.
I guess so. I just went to their site: http://www.athletic-club.net/noticias.asp?idi=1 All Basque or Spanish names. Interesting.
El Nacional from Ecuador. It's owned by the Ecuadorian Armed Forces, it's won a lot of championships but is not very popular. The no foreigners thing is actually a club policy. http://www.elnacional.org/
Yep http://www.realmaroonfc.com/documents/feat_sectarianism_2.htm http://www.soccernet.com/europe/news/2001/1105/20011105featball.html
Hannover96girl, Thanks for the info. Do you know of any other countries that have teams like Chivas or Athletic Bilbao?
Real Sociedad, also of the Basque region in Spain only sign Basque players and not spaniards. It's intersting because they do sign foreign players, but restrict spanish buys to basque players only.
Assuming Atheltic Bilbao maintains the Basque-only policy, Lizarazu would still qualify even though he's not Spanish, right?
He actually played for Athletic, before signing for Bayern. http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/4578/lizou_bio.html
Atletico Nacional of Medellin, Colombia also has a Colombians only policy. I think Espoli of Ecuador, who were associated with Ecuador's national police force had an Ecuadorian only policy but recently changed that as the team was struggling and needed some new players.
In fact, Lizarazu had some problems when he left Ath.Balboa. Some Basque fundatmentists thought of him as a traitor. I did not recall the story. He did something that screw up the club. As late as last year, he did receive a death threat regarding his departure. Alaves also did have similiar policy under a few seasons ago.
Lizarazu refused to pay the "revolutionary tax" that the nationalist/terrorist (take your pick) organisation ETA demands from corporations and wealthy individuals in the Basque provinces.
Excuse me for my ignorance Excape Goat, but don't you mean Bilbao? I've never heard of a team called Balboa
I heard that Chinese Football Association. They don't require services from anyone. That includes Japan, Korea's and Earth from sports.
Gazza signed (and predicatbly failed) with a second division team in China, no? And Patrick Vieira was cut by a Chinese club before going to Milan, I believe.
I believe I once posted it on BigSoccer before the great World Cup crash. I can't find the article now, but in it the Chinese coach was quoted as saying Vieira was not good enough to play in his team. Two years later Vieira was starting for Arsenal.
Actually, the Chinese clubs are foreign player obsessed. In the past off season, the Chinese clubs went nuts with foreign players. Most teams put at least 40 foreigners on trial. Some had about 60 players even through only 3 were allowed on the roster. Some clubs still brought about 20 players even through they completed their foreign player slot. Patrick Vieira rumored to make a return to China for "trial". At least, his agent did accept the free hotel and plane tickets. Most of the coaches are foreign too. In fact, the league was ran by IMG until the last few years.