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The FFA has detailed proposed changes to the A-League’s rules regarding foreign player quotas. The plan, expected to be further examined over the next few seasons, is set to be tentatively introduced in time for the 2018-19 season.
At the moment, A-League clubs are allowed to sign five foreign players from any footballing confederation. The new system would enforce a 4+1 quota, where five total foreign players can be still registered, but one of them must hail from an AFC nation.
This would further push the A-League in line with the rest of Asia, where various +1 AFC player quota systems are in place.
Widespread reports have mooted that China is planning an alteration to their system, which would involve doing away with the Asian player slot, and would restrict teams from fielding more than three foreigners on any given matchday, although five foreigners would be allowed to be present in the squad.
Japan have a system that allows five foreign players to be registered, but only three (+1 AFC player) to be present in the matchday squad. Since 2009, the K-League has had a simple 3+1 rule.
These changes, proposed by David Gallop and the rest of the governing body, might spur on A-League clubs to source more liberally from our region.
It would also help in simplifying squad selection headaches for teams competing in the AFC Champions League – where a 3+1 restriction is in place – whittling down the ineligible number of players, at least by one.
But there is one team for whom this new system only stands to complicate things.
The Wellington Phoenix, already a club whose future seems dimmer than the rest, is not an AFC nation, still sectioned off in Oceania. These new changes are supposed to help integrate Australian clubs into the Asian footballing community, but they further alienate the Nix from the A-League.
The majority of the Phoenix’s roster are Kiwi nationals, or from other nations. They have five Australians in their first team squad, and at the moment – without even considering what light these new changes would cast the Nix into – it’s tricky deducing exactly how the Wellington club are viewed in the Asian region.
They play in an Asian league, but are not from an Asian country. AFC Champions League places are only available to teams that come from confederation countries, so, if they were to qualify, would the Nix even be able to compete in the AFC Champions League, let alone field an eligible team?
It seems as though the muddy answer, at this point, is no. Kosta Barbarouses occupied a foreign player slot last season at the Victory, but is not occupying one for the Nix. Similarly, Australian players like Dylan Fox and Vince Lia do not take up visa spots for the Nix. The Phoenix are not allowed to play in the Oceania Champions League because they compete in an Asian domestic league, with players registered with the FFA, not that there would be much benefit were the rules to be bent to accommodate them; they would like dominate the competition to a degree that borders on pointlessness.
So, the Nix are technically an Asian team from the perspective of the OFC, and technically an Oceanic team from the perspective of the AFC. The Phoenix, with their dwindling membership, and suffering as they are through another underwhelming season, are in a cruel and unusual limbo. Now, new rules are being proposed by the FFA that appear to be indifferent to their situation – changes that are, if anything, hindering the process of extrication.
If these rules are designed with the AFC in mind, should they even apply to the Nix at all? The Phoenix would – assuming they’re still around for the ’18-19 season – have to sign an AFC-nation player if they want to fill their full complement of foreign slots. Oceanic players, like Roy Krishna, count as foreign players under current A-League rules, and yet they have a closer regional association to the Nix than a player from Korea or Japan.
Are the FFA regretting their decision to renew the Nix’s license last season? Is this latest announcement as much a passive-aggressive manoeuvre as it is a forward thinking update, designed indirectly to further isolate the New Zealand club?
Wellington have been pilloried for being, at times, an outfit wallowing and dragging the rest of the A-League down. Is it any wonder, though, when they are forced to straddle two confederations, enjoying very few of the benefits of either, stretching in a more excruciating fashion every season?