What does Foreign Player Mean?

I recently started a game in FM 08 in Belarus as Dinamo Minsk, and had a really good season winning the Highest League, and Belrussian Cup. After my success in the first year using more or less the players the team started with (I think I bought a new GK out of the gate, and brought in a striker about midway through the season). I read over the rules for the league and I"m not allowed more then 5 foreign players.

I currently have 5 foreign players, so I know I can't bring anymore into the team. At the end of the season I lost a lot of my best players because they either wanted to move to a bigger club, or just flat our refused to sign for me. I figured this wouldn't be too much of an issue, as I have scouted the belrussian leagues like crazy and had a pretty good idea of who I could replace them with. I went on a buying spree (had like a million for transfers), and brought in some quality players. Also got a couple of prommising youngsters who I think will do well.

With my best players leaving the belrussian league, and buying some of the top talent from the other teams in the Highest League, I figured the second season would be a cake walk. I was wrong though as I found Gomel to be doing extrodinarily well giving me a very tough time at reclaiming the high league trophy once again. I was supprised that when I looked at their team they had gone from a mostly belrussian team to loading up with 7-8 new Ukranian players, who had better stats then the Belrussian players I had bought from their earlier. They also didn't count as foreign, so it got me thinking that your not foreign if you were part of the former Soviet Block.

I began to scout the eastern european countries and came accross a great looking DC from Kazakhstan. I signed him figuring he wouldn't count as foreign, but I was wrong.

I spent some time then going over the other teams in the league, and as far as I can tell the following applies:

Russians - Not Foreign

Ukraine - Not Foreign

Belrussia - Not Froreign

Kazakhstan - Foreign

Countries I'm not sure about include:

Poland

Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania

Moldova

Kyrgystan

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Azerbaijan

Armenia

Georgia

Obviously I would like to know which countries I should be scouting as I have so few Foreign slots, that I would like to save them for positions I really need filled by true superstar players.

It this perhaps to do with the player not being an EU National, that might be way off but just a thought.

If that was the case does anybody know which countries above are considered EU and which ones aren't?

I have moaned at this before because Belarus is not the only nation that has special rules which fm decides not to tell you about. I'm not sure if these are the actual rules but this is how I see it implemented on 08, basically you are allowed some of the western countries of the former soviet union. So you are allowed Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. On 08 Kazakhstan was allowed and but I don't think Russia was. Baltic, Caucasus and other Central Asian countries except Kazakhstan were not allowed though. I suppose it makes more sense that Russia is allowed but Kazakhstan not, as I say I'm not sure of the actual rule.

Theres a similar situation in Turkey allowing you to sign players from Turkic countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The real problem is that the actual countries you are allowed are not mentioned anywhere in the game as far as I can tell, something that I moaned about months ago and its not been changed.

yeah it's a real shame because managing in these leagues can be hard enough at times, and when you start to have success with a team of National players they all start to leave in search of bigger teams in other countries. You need to replace them, but with who? A list of countries that aren't considered foreign would make a huge difference in the enjoyment of the game, instead of having to test them out all one by one, waisting money and years of game time.

Theres examples of it in loads of leagues, I've never seen it explaining them though and not only in the smaller leagues, in France you're allowed to sign a lot of francophone african countries players without them being non-eu.

If that was the case does anybody know which countries above are considered EU and which ones aren't?

One presumes SI just went on who are the existing EU members...

A random search for "EU Members" revealed this and many sites like it : http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm

The Belarus issue has nothing to do with EU MrBlonde, also the SI definition of EU is not the actual EU. It typically counts Norway and Iceland (part of EEA) and Switzerland part of nothing really but a common exception. Also in many European leagues the definition of non-EU is massively warped, the Swiss league has a non-EU limit where EU seems to mean any country in Europe.

I don't know, I just wanted to tell you that Poland wasn't in the Sovietunion.

I should have pointed that out already

Poland play in the euro cinternational championship so that makes them a Euro team to me

I included Poland because although I hinted that perhaps it had something to do with the former soviet block, it might just be and eastern European thing, or a special agreement between certain countries.

Either way it would be great to have a list. Is there a way to check it in the coding?