The European Parliament dealt another blow to FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s controversial plans to curb the number of foreigners at soccer clubs by voting against the proposals today.
EU lawmakers rejected Blatter’s “6+5 rule”, allowing no more than five foreign players to start a match, by 518 votes to 49 but most backed the “home-grown player rule” of European soccer’s governing body UEFA.
FIFA opposes the UEFA rule, which sets a quota of locally-trained players at clubs but without any discrimination on nationality, arguing it encourages recruitment at a young age.
UEFA says Blatter’s proposal is unworkable in the EU because it contravenes the bloc’s laws on the free movement of workers and could lead to costly legal challenges — a view echoed by the EU assembly.
“Unfortunately the 6+5 rule is not compatible with the free movement of persons in the EU. The European Treaty is very clear on this point: discrimination on the basis of nationality is not allowed and this also counts for football,” Belgian MEP Ivo Belet, author of the parliament’s report on the future of professional football, told the assembly.
“We therefore ask FIFA to join forces with the European Parliament and the European Commission and fully back the ‘home-grown’ rule.”
Members also slammed Blatter’s idea of reaching a “gentlemen’s agreement” with the individual associations at FIFA’s congress later this month, saying he risked a repetition of the 1995 “Bosman Ruling” by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The ruling by Europe’s top court, named after Belgian player Jean-Marc Bosman, gave all sports professionals within the 27-member bloc the freedom to change clubs.
The Commission is expected to come forward later this year with a proposal on locally-trained players in all sports, which will require the backing of both the EU assembly and the 27 sports ministers.
To change FIFA’s rules, Blatter needs 75 percent support at the congress in Sydney on May 29 where each of FIFA’s 208 member associations who are eligible to vote have one vote each and UEFA as an organisation has none.
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