posted Nov 26, 2007

I support aresenal and i no something has to be done about it. I think that if it happens it will have to happen in 3 years time, any sooner would ruin clubs like arsenal, liverpool and pompey.

However, I think this has absolutely nothing to do withe englands poor ness.

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posted Nov 26, 2007

i would like to see less foreigners in the premier league and i think that a quota would be a good idea although i cant see it being introduced. there would be many objections from managers within the game and politians that it would make it impossible. i do think that some deterant should be pressed on foreign players with some sort of "tax" that would mean that some arent as attractive as homegrown talent. maybe some of this tax money from buying players could be given to development groups to produce better players with better equipment they could buy with the extra money

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posted Nov 26, 2007

ok i have two words for stepp blatter retirement home ..........what good will it do the good game of football where you have to be chosen by merit and nationality and not the skill. so much for fair play thats racism in its fullest well we africans will take our games elswhere and see how long the premier league last.... england will never win a world cup untill they learn to swallow their pride and stop calling lampard ,gerrad, rooney world class ........change your team make them fight for their spots stop using owen becase he is done he cost more money to play for england ..........there are so many changes but i will save that till next time

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posted Nov 26, 2007

I personally have very mixed feelings over this issue. After all, I find it incredible to watch Arsenal play (yes, another one, but they’re in my blood - born in Islington in 1964; lived just a few minutes walk from Highbury stadium; lifelong follower - once a “supporter” when I paid to go to see the matches, through the "good times" and "bad" (they've never really been very bad, admittedly)). The current team is amazing to watch, and I would hate for the standard to drop. And drop it would if quotas on non-English players were set, because there just aren’t enough great English players to go around.

However, I've often thought that it would be interesting if football clubs only consisted of players who were born within a small radius of their club’s home ground - a few miles in cities, a bit further afield in towns and more so in rural areas. Not just a proportion of the players, but all of them! This is effectively the case in all grassroots football - not many people travel far to play for their Sunday side. They'd really be representing their local community. Now, perhaps what Blatter is suggesting is not hugely different from this. But what he’s forgetting is that the populations of most of the top footballing nations are multiracial. I know that many of the teams playing on Hackney Marshes in E. London consist of players of all skin-shades, they all live locally, but many of them are of foreign origin.

I remember how nice it was to see national teams consisting of players that really do look as if they hail from that part of the country/continent/World. I think back fondly to the 1970 World Cup Finals. I’d collected stickers of all of the players and stuck them into the album. At 6 years old I was enthralled at seeing the different nationalities actually look different to each other. In very many cases you could look at a face and actually guess correctly at his origin – and therefore the country he was representing. I also really enjoyed the 1970’s and 1980’s when Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were dominating the European Cup – British-born players (yes, not just English players in these sides) beating teams solely comprised of Italians, Germans, Spaniards, etc). But times have of course changed dramatically. And that is the way it is going to remain. We are living in multi-racial/cultural societies, not just locally but across much of the World. We Europeans are free to go and live and work in another European country - I'm English but live and work in France at the moment - so to say that footballers cannot do so is ridiculous and unlikely to happen. If it did, it would severely prejudice against the few great players that are coming from those nations who don’t have a good national side – for example Hleb (Arsenal), or Schevchenco (Chelsea), Drogba (Chelsea) and so on (including the many African nations). A quota would reduce their chances of playing top-class football, and also wreck our chances of seeing them play. It would also be “racist” – something football is supposedly opposed to.

Overall, I’d rather see the scintillating football that we see from the top sides rather than mediocrity. If anything needs to change for the benefit of football as a whole, it’s the huge difference that exists financially between the “big 4” and the rest – but that’s another story.

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posted Nov 26, 2007

Mr. Sepp blatter has been talking too much. He should watch his utterances before he is accused of racism and descrimination. It is absolutely offensive of him to call brazillians who play for other nations invaders. It is Sepp Blatter himself who is an invader by trying to invade in the rights of individual teams to sign players and rights of individual nations to determine who plays for their national team.- Rev. Marcel Okwara, CSsR

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posted Nov 26, 2007

It is simply a case of Club or Country ? Which do you want to see prosper more ? If the premier league remains as is in 3 seasons time there will be little presence of English players in the teams. What impact will that have on your World Cup Chances ?

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posted Nov 26, 2007

gunner_in_exile,

Your sentiment, while understandably poetic in its nostalgia, describes a time that only existed in your imagination, I am afraid. There were never pure countries, racially or otherwise. Even in 1970 WC, all Brazilian players did not have the same origin. Pele was clearly of African stock, while Rivelino was as white as any Italian. Even all white teams like Germany had a tremendous amount of diversity, with someone like Grabowski being the son of polish immigrants. Ask any German whether people from Bavaria are different from the rest of the country. Your sentiment is a very parochial and nostalgic ideal that only existed in you imagination as a kid. You now live in my country, France. I can tell you that our top players, the pride of the French football system, have often been of foreign extraction:
-Michel Platini (Italian parents)
-Jean Tigana (Father from Mali, Africa)
-Christian Lopez (Spanish parents)
-Robert Pires (Portuguese parents)
-Zinnedine Zidane (Algerian Parents)
-Christian Viera (Senegalese parents)
-Makelele (Parents from the Congo)
-Jean Francois Larios (Greek parents)
-Eric Cantona (parents from Corsica, a French territory off the cost of Italy)
-Eric Boghosian (Armenian parents)
-Youri Djorkaeff (Armenian parents)

I could go on and on forever. Every French team, since the 1950's had been multicultural. Raymond Kopa, one of the best French player ever, memner of the team that finished third in WC 58 in Sweden, was in fact Polish. His real name was Raymond Kopaszewski. The great Alfredo Di Stephano, who played for Spain in the 50s and 60s, was not Spanish at all, but Argentine. Even that, he was an Argentine or Italian origin (his parents had immigrated from Italy to Argentina during the war). You see, there is no purity anywhere. Not even in England. How many Welshmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen have played for England over the years? How many players like Graham Le Saux, whith his French ancestry, have played for England? Therefore, when you were looking at these pictures as a kid, multiculturalism was what you were looking at, you were just too naïve to understand at the time.

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posted Nov 27, 2007

Several years ago Fifa got the Premiel leagur to reduce from 22 teams to 20 because players were playing to many games, the premier league complied and Fifa immediately filled those spare date with international matches, it is using the same excuse to try and reduce the premier league from 20 to 18 clubs. The nBlatter comes along with the idea of a quota on foreign players(racist), this would reduce the quality of the premier league, which is Blatter's aim as any reduction in quality would reduce the revenue the Premier league would get from TV and sponsorship whilst Blatter could boast that FIFA's World Cup is the worth even more as the event of outstanding quality.

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posted Nov 27, 2007

A very dangerous word has managed to worm its way into this debate... Racism!

How on earth can people construe the proposed quota as racism?? The quota is to try and safeguard the future of English football, to try and ensure we develop more and better English players!

To call it racism is pathetic, and typical of the PC sensitive country that we live in!

The huge irony is, that this word is mostly being used by Arsenal fans, claiming it would discriminate against foreign imports....

Arsenal, the only club that regularly selects no English players in its team, is accusing this quota of discriminating....

There is nothing wrong in wanting your own country to succeed, and there is nothing wrong with Blatter trying to ensure that every country maintains its identity in this hugely positive multi-cultural enviroment football now exists in.

Whether it is right or wrong, the ruling Blatter is trying to bring in is an attempt to make sure that all countries continue to develop their own talent, as well as developing and purchasing the best from abroad!

That is perfectly fair to me, he is trying to keep a balance.

To call him racist is pathetic in my view, and an easy way of dismissing what he is trying to do.

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posted Jan 7, 2008

rastamanvibe79 - "we africans will take our games elswhere and see how long the premier league last"

Where exactly??? Any EU legislation would apply to the whole of Europe, not just the Premiership. South America doesn't pay £60k per week and Africa sure doesn't. So where? The J League? MLS?

Good luck with working that one out...

And this isn't just about African Players. You have overlooked the fact that limits are being placed on South Americans, US and Australian nationals and - importantly - there will be an impact on European Players.

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