Going Native

4 February 2005



UEFA Wants More Homegrown Soccer Players

UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations which governs soccer in Europe, has announced new rules that require competitors in the UEFA Cup and the Champions’ League to have 4 native players in the squad of 25 for the 2006 showdown. In addition, it is asking that these rules get applied in national leagues, and that the figure rise to 6 and then 8 in the next few years. Fortunately, the 52 national soccer federations that compose UEFA have to ratify this. There is still a chance that this bad idea won’t go forward.

According to the UEFA website: The proposals have been made after UEFA identified a number of perceived negative trends in European football - lack of incentive in training players, lack of identity in local/regional teams, lack of competitive balance, ‘hoarding’ of players and related problems for national teams.

In the 2006/07 season, each team must have 2 club trained players and 2 association trained players for a total of four natives out of the 25 slots on the rosters. In 2007/08, it is three club trained and three association trained, and in 2008-09 four of each. “A club-trained player is defined as a player who has been registered for a minimum of three seasons with the club between the age of 15 and 21, whereas an association-trained player is a player who has been registered for at least three seasons by the club or by other clubs affiliated to the same association of the said club between the age of 15 and 21.”

Of the 32 teams in the last Champions’ League (a super league made up of the top clubs in the various UEFA countries), 5 do not meet these new standards: England’s Arsenal and Chelsea, Ajax in Holland, and both Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow, Scotland. In other words, 27 of the teams already meet these requirements, so this is a solution that has already been implemented. Moreover, “lack of identity in local/regional teams” doesn’t apply to any of the 5 “offenders,” especially Celtic and Rangers where the local police say there is too much identity given the security needed when the two play.

UEFA, though, isn’t so much worried about these big clubs as it is concerned about the smaller, lesser known teams – or so it says. If so, this is a case of hurting them in the name of helping them (saving the village team by destroying it). European countries have different talent pools, largely due to different population sizes. Germany has got more potential soccer players than Holland because it has more people. To require kids to register outside their own country for three years before they are 21 is a huge restraint, which would keep most kids in their home nations. In other words, it is going to be easier for German teams to meet this requirement than Dutch teams, or Scottish teams, or Portuguese, or Norwegian, etc.

Above all, it makes it harder for non-Europeans to get a spot in the more lucrative European leagues. Josh Wolf of Kansas City got $350,000 last year (Freddy Adu of DC United had a lower base, but his housing and other benefits totaled $500,000). England Captain David Beckham received $28 million from Real Madrid, and the average pay in the Premiership (the top English 20) was about what Mr. Wolf got in the MLS. To a man like Chelsea’s Claude Makelele, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, that’s a huge amount to forego to stay in Africa. The effect will be the very best players who aren’t European will go play in the Americas or Asia, and European soccer will suffer.

In addition, it is bad for the international example of cooperation that soccer provides. Let the World Cup pander to the nationalisms of Brazil, Germany and Argentina. It is better for the youth of Europe to watch a side like Chelsea (the side favored by the Kensington Review whose players are there because of merit rather than because of affirmative action. The surnames alone say it best: Cech, Ferreira, Gallas, Terry, Bridge, Tiago, Makelele, Lampard, Duff, Gudjohnsen, Kezman, Robben, Cole, Jarosik, Johnson, and Cudicini. And Chelsea’s roster isn’t unique. Wednesday evening, those men defeated a Blackburn team composed of : Friedel, Neill, Todd, Nelsen, Matteo, Emerton, Thompson, Reid, Mokoena, Savage, Pedersen, Dickov, Amoruso, Tugay, Enckelman, and another Johnson. And no one in the stadium cared where they grew up or trained.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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