6+5 and why we have to stop it

By: Rob | May 30th, 2008

Sepp Blatter got one step closer to getting his controversial 6+5 policy implemented by 2012, after a FIFA congress voted a landslide in favour of the policy. If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s what it comes down to. All clubs would have to field 6 players from thier own country in thier Starting XI, and thus could only have 5 from abroad. This obviously is going to have a massive effect on the Champions League, and so I think its only right I have a look at the policy and tell you exactly what I think.

The idea, in principle I suppose is that the big money-filled sides will no longer be able to buy out all the best players from around the world and make outragously exciting teams from the best players in the world. The great thing about club football is that anyone can play from anywhere and all come together. And you might not like Real Madrid, or indeed Chelsea, but it can’t really be argued that the idea of putting together a World XI isn’t at least a little exciting?
Besides, as we could probably work out the big teams would just buy all thier national talent, and there would be no change to the dominence of the big teams.

Obviously the affect on the Champions League would be massive. Now the Champions League has many, many flaws. But what it does have, is the best club teams in the world going up against each other season after season. If 6+5 came into play, then it would basically be alot lke the European Championships, but you know every year. It would devalue the Champions League, and the Euros.

It probably should be worth pointing out, that Man United started the Champions League final with 6 British players anyway, Chelsea with 5. So its not as if the most successful (currently, not historically Liverpool fans) English clubs are actually just buying all the overseas talent (leave that to Arsenal and Liverpool) they’re breeding and buying English as well.

The big thing in this country (for I am English), is about our national team. There’s a stat that only a third of players playing in the Premier League last season were English, and England didn’t qualify for the Euros so thier must be a connection right? right? Wrong. Not only is the Prem the main league for Irish, Welsh and a fair few Scottish as well, so you probably should add them to the number because we are always going to have those, but if you kicked out all the overseas players - not only would the league be less exciting (would Arsenal have bred Fabregas? No. Would United have taken a risk on Ronaldo? Not likely) - but all you would do is make the lesser English player rise to the top. This is NOT going to improve the national team. I’m also of the opinion that the likes of Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham and Joe Cole would have become better players from playing with world class overseas players all thier lives. The other big flaw in the argument is that if thier were such a massive amount of English players who were all unable to get into the club sides here because of those nasty forign players then, well they’d up and go abroad right? right? Well David Beckham is the only Englishman I can think of who earns his way outside of the UK.

The 6+5 rule is supposed to equal parity as well, but what the hell would the African players do? I don’t think there has been any doubt that the current generation of African players has been thier best ever, and not only that but they have gained a great deal from playing in London, Barcelona and Milan. If the 6+5 rule came in, no clubs would take the risk on African Players, especially with the African Cup of Nations as well. They’d all have to go back to Africa, and then what? Well African football is set back a good few years I’m afraid. Ditto Asian footballers.

There’s also the small fact that its illegal. It does discriminate based on nationality, whichever way you look at it, and that is not something we really want to go down is it? I mean, say you apply for a job as a postman in a distant land. And then the Post Office says, “Sorry Guv, but we’re only able to have 40% of our workforce coming from abroad”. You’d think, “hang on, but i’m the best person for this job, and isn’t this denying me work based on my background? predjudice at best, Xenophobia or Rascism at worst?” If it seems out of order the Post Office doing it, why is it any less wrong for football to do it? Surely a person should be employed because they are the best candidate for the job, not because of where they were born?

There is also the fact that the clubs will not take this lying down. The Artist Formally Known as G14 will probably be talking to each other very long and hard about this. A few years ago, there was an idea by the G14 that they should break away from UEFA and form a European Super League. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that a break-away league would be catastrophic for football. Sure it’d be exciting for awhile, but it would ruin the foundations of football, and would be a money-grabbing exercise that would make The Champions League look like an honest competetion. The big clubs relationship with UEFA and FIFA is not great at the moment with the whole Webster Clause stuff going on, if Blatter implemented this, I would be seriously worried about a break-away league. Someone would fund it, TV companies for one, and then bang, football is ruined for everyone.

So in conclusion, no I do not think that 6+5 is a good idea. I hope to hell Sepp doesn’t get his way, frankly he’s gone too far this time.