ECA Rejects FIFA’s Proposed ‘6+5 Rule’

The 103-member European Club Association used its first meeting to tell FIFA that it opposes the soccer world governing body’s goal of restricting the number of foreign-born players in a club team’s line-up. The organization sees no need for FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s proposed “6+5 rule” that would stipulate at least six home-grown players and a maximum of five foreigners in a team’s starting XI.
 
The ECA said that it supports instead the European governing body UEFA’s guidelines on this issue (already implemented for the Champions League), which require every roster to include a minimum number of locally trained players, with no restriction on nationality. UEFA has said that the ‘6+5 rule’ is unworkable under European Union law, and that enforcing it would provoke immediate legal action from clubs and players.
 
We can expect to hear a lot more from the ECA in the coming years, which at the meeting also elected the politically formidable Karl-Heinz Rummenigge as its chairman. The body superseded the G-14 group of Europe’s richest clubs, which disbanded earlier this year after a long and often successful campaign of being a thorn in the side of both FIFA and UEFA. The aim of the ECA, which includes at least one club from every UEFA nation but is tilted toward Europe’s major leagues, will be to protect the economic interests of the continent’s biggest clubs, whose power has grown hand in hand with their wealth over the past decade.