Richard Williams makes the case for the 6+5 rule in the Guardian today. There’s nothing really new here: the emphasis is on the greed of the Premier League and the dangers of inequality, though Williams does make an eccentric attempt to connect inequitable football markets with the social problems that arise through individual income disparity. (Is he saying that the Premier League is responsible for teen pregnancy?) Still, an articulate defense of Sepp Blatter in English is a rare enough beast that it’s always worth noting when it appears.
What Williams’s argument doesn’t address, and what arguments like this never address, is the more basic inequality that arises from their obsession with equality at the league level. It might be good for “the game” (whatever that means) in smaller football nations to give fewer non-European players the opportunity to play in Europe. But how is it fair for the players? How is it fair for a talented African or Asian player to lose the chance to play at the highest level while a less talented European gains access to more money, fame, and glory—because the European leagues will stay at the top of the world’s prestige pile even under the new system, at least for the foreseeable future—simply by an accident of birth? Unless someone can show me that that won’t be the effect of the 6+5 rule, or explain to me why I shouldn’t care, arguments like Williams’s are never going to persuade me that equality is really the interest they have at heart.
Read More: Guardian, Sepp Blatter
by Brian Phillips · March 3, 2009
It seems like a good way of addressing the inequality issues in European soccer would be an NBA-style system with salary caps and player trades. I kind of like that system as a middle ground between the absolute equality of the NFL (which makes it almost impossible to maintain a stable team) and the free-for-all that is European soccer (where wealthy clubs basically pillage poorer ones). Of course, you’d never get those clubs to go along with it, but one can dream.
I remain mainfestly unconvinced that the current version of 6+5 would survive a freedom of movement-based challenge in an EU court.
I’m with ursus on this one. I’m no law whiz, but doesn’t every prior ruling suggest it would be struck down?
Yes, and the European Commission came out to reiterate that after the Blatter-commissioned “independent panel” suggested otherwise.
Yeah, at least based on what I understand about the EU’s freedom of movement laws, I agree that the 6+5 rule is illegal. The INEA report last week was so comical I couldn’t even find a way to write about it that didn’t feel like cheating. (The INEA listed FIFA in the “Our Partners” section of their website until right around the moment people started questioning the independent nature of the investigation, at which point, whoosh, no more FIFA.)
I still think it’s worth arguing against the rule on moral grounds, though. That is, I think it would be a bad idea even if the law changed or the EU followed through on all this week’s headlines and dissolved in acrimony.
Agreed.
The Commission would of course claim that the principle has a moral base (as well as an economic one), but the force of that claim is weakened by the fact that the principle only applies to EU citizens.
The moral claim you are making is much broader.
If a team were able to only keep 5 Non-EU or “foreign” players on their roster, then it would be against the freedom of movement laws of the EU.
But as I see it, these proposals don’t restrict clubs to only 5 foreigners on their roster, but only on the playing field. A similar regulation was in place in the early 90’s in the immediate aftermath of the Bosman ruling.
I don’t see how the EC can ‘force’ tasks onto employees, e.g. you must play.
I think that clubs will just get players at younger age to ensure they can naturalize. This will change nothing, except that Cesc Fabregas would have dual citizenship.
Also, the question of legality depends on if there is a “right” to play in the CL. Right now, Blatter’s spin on the matter is that no club has an intrinsic right to play CL football – it is a privilege with requirements. He wants to create a license to play.
For example, I want to drive a car. Do I have a right to drive a car? No. I need a license.
Another example. I want to play soccer with some quality players at a park on sunday morning. However, after a few touches they see me for the scrub I am. They ask me to leave. Do I have a right to play soccer with that specific group of people?
To me it is terribly disturbing to see a team like Arsenal or Inter fielding a starting line-up of non-English or non-Italian players; how could an Englishman or an Italian support such a team? Teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, Juventus and Milan have a better approach to the problem. If I am correct I think these teams have enjoyed the bulk of their success when the bulk of the players on the field were from their respective countries.