FIFA’s 6+5 rule has been overwhelmingly approved by 155 of the organisation’s member nations, but is it really in the interest of the world game?
The 6+5 rule is designed to restore the national identity in football clubs which have a high number of foreign players in the squad while also reducing the gap between the big and small clubs.
The new rule allows six home grown players and a maximum of five foreigners in club football teams.
From 1992-2007 BBC sport calculated the starting eleven of each team on the first weekend of the EPL season.
The results showed that in 1992 over 180 players were of English descent with just a little over 20 being foreign players.
In 2007 only 80 of the players were English and over 120 being of foreign blood.
Chelsea became the first Premier League side to field an entirely foreign starting line up (December 1999) and on 14 February 2005 Arsenal were the first to name a completely foreign 16 man squad for a match.
And if you look in the European leagues today you will find many of the well known stars are foreign. Cristiano Ronaldo plays in England but is of Portuguese decent, same with Fernando Torres (Spain), Robin Van Persie (Dutch) and Robinho (Brazil) just to name a few, the list goes on throughout Europe and also the rest of the world.
The 6+5 will impact football severely.
Why try and change something that doesn’t need changing?
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