Fifa have voted in favour of the ’six-plus-five’ rule which would place restrictions on foreign players.
The president of football’s world governing body, Sepp Blatter, hopes to see the initiative implemented by the 2012/13 season.
The ruling would limit the number of overseas players any one team can field in their starting XI to just five.
Fifa have grown increasingly concerned by the number of foreign stars infiltrating Europe’s top leagues, with the English Premier League standing out as the most obvious example.
Despite fears from the European Union that the introduction of the rule would contravene freedom of movement regulations, Blatter insists that Fifa would proceed “within the limits of the law”.
The good news though, is that the EU have completely rejected the claims that the rule is to go ahead, here’s what John McDonald—spokesman for the European Commissioner for Sport—told BBC why he does not expect Blatter’s ambitions to succeed.
“It is a non-starter as far as we are concerned,” he said.
“Interestingly, the wording that Mr Blatter mentioned this morning at his press conference was that FIFA’s resolution is to explore within the limits of the law the six-plus-five rule.”
“And they can explore as much as they like, but, unfortunately, a six-plus-five rule is against Community legislation.”
Source: BBC Football
For the supporters that would like to know how many English players we have in both First and Reserve & Youth teams, here they are:
Goalkeepers
Defenders
Midfielders
Mark Randall - First Team
Theo Walcott - First Team
Justin Hoyte - First Team
Kieran Gibbs - Reserves
James Dunne - Reserves
Henri Lansbury - Reserves
Jack Wilshere - Reserves
Craig Eastmond - Reserves
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas - Reserves
Conor Henderson - Youth
Emmanuel Frimpong - Reserves
Chuks Aneke - Youth
Rorie Deacon - Youth
