'six-plus-five' Ruling - how would it effect your game?

If Sepp Blatter gets his way and get the 5 foreign players per team ruling passed the European Commission, how would it effect your style of club management in the game?

This is relation to FOOTBALL MANAGER NOT REAL LIFE .

I personally wouldn’t like playing to this ruling for several reasons, but most important one would be the quality of my teams.

My personal policy is to buy the best player I can afford for each position on my team with adequate cover. This ruling will mean I have to keep one eye on my teams nationality as well. As some teams, mainly smaller teams, don’t have decent youth facilities, this means dipping my toe into the domestic transfer market and buying players who won’t necessarily be the best players available for the positions required.

So my teams wil basically be the best teams from that domestic league – the way I see it , this basically takes National Management and club management one step closer. International management should be about national identity, club management should be about the best players for your club, regardless of their nationality. Club management is about winning and entertaining, how will we be able to do that if we are restricted to having six of the home nations players in our teams?

OK so it’s not as much of a problem when competing at the top level in a great league (Italy, Spain England) will be more of a problem if playing in a terrible league! Can you imagine trying to compete in Europe with a Scottish team with this ruling in effect?

tbh, in recent years the Scottish and Northern Irish national teams have played better than England's, if anything their leagues will get better.

You do know that until like '94 or so(can't remember the year, but it was the same time as the Bosman ruling) that it was a max of 3 foreigners in a match squad, don't you?

well if u hear the rules properly say for a scotish side they DONT actually need to be scotish- some sort of descrimination thing i think- read into it

shouldnt be too hard too work into FM- but to be honest i may not be answering your question properly because im half asleep so didnt read properly!

lol

I don't see how this proposal can pass European law.

How would British players fit into this? Would a Scottish player count as foreign for an English team? What about teams like Cardiff?

In my current game in the BSP I could easily make the 6+5, my first team has 8 English, 1 Irish, 1 Scottish and one from Trinidad & Tobago.

Originally posted by YesYesOhYay:

well if u hear the rules properly say for a scotish side they DONT actually need to be scotish- some sort of descrimination thing i think- read into it

shouldnt be too hard too work into FM- but to be honest i may not be answering your question properly because im half asleep so didnt read properly!

lol

wouldn't 'heading the wrong way' make more sense than 'heading in the wrong direction'?

Originally posted by Dave Fairbairn:

You do know that until like '94 or so(can't remember the year, but it was the same time as the Bosman ruling) that it was a max of 3 foreigners in a match squad, don't you?

Yes I'm of course aware of this, I was actually playing CM at that time and remember it being very frustrating having to be limited to just 3 foreigners in your entire squad. I remember being very excited when the ruling was brought in to unrestricted foreigners.

For the guy that thought smaller national teams such as Scotland etc. will probably get better - remember this is talking purely within the confines of the game. I don't want to discuss the ruing generally as I have different opinions there and want to keep the topic relevant.

Originally posted by dafuge:

How would British players fit into this? Would a Scottish player count as foreign for an English team? What about teams like Cardiff?

In my current game in the BSP I could easily make the 6+5, my first team has 8 English, 1 Irish, 1 Scottish and one from Trinidad & Tobago.

I'm not entirely sure if British players would be classed as home grown , I'll read into it. I was just highlighting Scotland as a prime example, should the ruling apply to home nations.

Er, is it just me, or would this make no difference whatsoever? If it has to be 6 "homegrown" players, then it makes no difference as people like Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. would all count. And if it means they have to have English nationality - well it still makes no difference, as Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. have all lived in this country long enough to qualify for citizenship and there is no way they dont provide for their socieites, so for all intents and purposes they are English!

THIS WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN REAL LIFE OR IN FM!

Er, is it just me, or would this make no difference whatsoever? If it has to be 6 "homegrown" players, then it makes no difference as people like Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. would all count. And if it means they have to have English nationality - well it still makes no difference, as Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. have all lived in this country long enough to qualify for citizenship and there is no way they dont provide for their socieites, so for all intents and purposes they are English!

thats basically what i was trying to say and

wouldn't 'heading the wrong way' make more sense than 'heading in the wrong direction'?

doesn't really matter!

lol

Originally posted by Stomalomalus:

Er, is it just me, or would this make no difference whatsoever? If it has to be 6 "homegrown" players, then it makes no difference as people like Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. would all count. And if it means they have to have English nationality - well it still makes no difference, as Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. have all lived in this country long enough to qualify for citizenship and there is no way they dont provide for their socieites, so for all intents and purposes they are English!

THIS WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN REAL LIFE OR IN FM!

I believe they have to be eligable to play for the national team, so that would rule them out

Doesn't the spanish league already have something similar? They have a lot of non-EU players in their team, but because they now have european passports it doesnt matter. I know its not quite the same but it works in a similar principle.

Cristiano Ronaldo is, in no sensible sense of the word, homegrown. He may have arrived in this country quite young, but he ain't home grown. Besides, he wouldn't have been homegrown when he was signed so Manure would have had to wait 5 years or whatever for him to finally count as homegrown.

As for my style of management - it wouldn't change the way I want to manage in FM at all, but it would change the way I do. I have always wanted to build a team of mostly kids from my youth team, but the quality of regens from player-managed clubs in FM08 that I have seen (and FM07) makes that impossible so I have to sign them up from other clubs instead.

Originally posted by Dave Fairbairn:

You do know that until like '94 or so(can't remember the year, but it was the same time as the Bosman ruling) that it was a max of 3 foreigners in a match squad, don't you?

Ah, the good old days. I remember Leeds United getting a replay after being dumped out of Europe because the opposing team had an additional foreigner on their bench.

First leg away was lost 3-0.

Second leg was winning 4-0 at Elland Road until one foreigner came of the bench for another and an administrator at United spotted it. The Score ending 4-1, meaning Leeds lost on away goals.

The tie was to be decided over a single match on a neutral venue, which Leeds won 2-1 (Carl Schutt off the bench).

Anyway, back on topic: 1) the game will be enhanced because - I think - clubs will be forced to field youngsters where possible and newgens will be created at a much higher level. and 2) it's irrelevant anyway because it breaks the law. Unless Blatter can get himself elected as head of state of a European country - say PM of England - and persuade his Euro cronies to overturn constitutional law relating to free trade inside the Union, his plan has little chance of coming off. I doubt any CURRENT head of state could pull this off, since free trade and working is one of the founding principles of the EU, so I don't think Mr Blatter is going to be any more successful.

homegrown means they must have spent 3/4 years in the country by age 21 me thinks!

Originally posted by Stomalomalus:

Er, is it just me, or would this make no difference whatsoever? If it has to be 6 "homegrown" players, then it makes no difference as people like Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. would all count. And if it means they have to have English nationality - well it still makes no difference, as Fabregas, Ronaldo, etc. have all lived in this country long enough to qualify for citizenship and there is no way they dont provide for their socieites, so for all intents and purposes they are English!

THIS WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN REAL LIFE OR IN FM!

Ronaldo wouldn't count unless Man U signed him on a youth contract. At least he wouldn't count until he's been nationalised and holds a British passport.

In the pre-Bosman days, a player was considered a "national" if he'd been at the club 4 years (I think). Of course, most gamers here probably won't remember that far back. To the older ones: remember when you had to pay a fee for a player even when he was out of contract?

The Fifa 6+5 rule is that 6 players must be of the same nationality of the country that the league is in and be eligable for the national team.

Uefa though are trying to put through a system where the players would of had to be trained in the leagues county from a cetain age, but it does not matter which nationality the player is, ie Fabregas.

Originally posted by santy001:

Doesn't the spanish league already have something similar? They have a lot of non-EU players in their team, but because they now have european passports it doesnt matter. I know its not quite the same but it works in a similar principle.

Non-EU player rules are legal. What Blatter is talking about is players from THAT country only. So the Spanish rule would come in, but affecting all non-Spaniards too.

For FM, this would mean a lot of new coding and a lot of gamers looking for ways around it. I quite like the idea. I don't think it would stop you signing foreigners, but it would stop you fielding them on the pitch. I wonder if this is a loophole for Blatter to exploit?

So you can save money on tea ladies by using those excess foreigners in the kitchens

SI would have to make sure that training and regeneration of players work properly before releasing the game. On every single version of FM there has been problems with player development and regens that have had effects on a long term game. If the rules are going to limit a managers flexibility further, then it will very important that this works fully.

Yah. They could do 6 euros / 5 non euros... but thats not an issue. Since non-EU people generally dont a get a work permit half the time.

But Its illegal for an EU country to limit any other EU national from working in any EU country.

And thats why 6+5 will never be passed.

When Celtic became the first British side to win the European Cup in 1967, was it not something ridiculous like every player was born within 15 minutes of the stadium, or glasgow, or something?

Anyway, the point is they were all Scottish, I think there might have been one englishman on the bench who ddnt play in the comp, so if it was done then, it can be done now.

When I play in the lower league (most of the time) I usually have mostly homegrown anyway, but I'm going to start having native players at the bigger clubs, or trying to anyway.

Originally posted by glamdring:

So you can save money on tea ladies by using those excess foreigners in the kitchens

And use the Eastern Bloc builders to sort your new statium

I think I could probably cope, it wouldn't necessarily be my best team on the pitch but I would have 6 English players, it would be better if it was British players, which it might be.

If you play a game with Shaktar, it already does something similar, and I think it's a good thing. It makes you fight harder to buy the best Ukranians you can, and the emphasis is with this rather than buying in foreign talent. It's all very well having Modric, Arshavin, Breno etc but 5 players don't make a team. It makes you invest in youth and trying to expand the pool of homegrown talent.

It doesn't have to affect the EU's ruling on the right to work in any country. A club can still buy as many foreign players as they want, but they will know that they can only field so many at any one time. This way, you'll only sign foreign players who will get a game on a regular basis (Fabregas, Ronaldo etc) and forget about the likes of Gabriel Paletta, Alex Song or John Pantsil. This will provide more opportunities for English talent.

This will never happen, the only thing Fifa could get away with is limiting the amount of non eu players. saying an eu player cant work for a club is against the law.... Sky sports news said so this morning

I currently have only 3 first team starters in my world class Premier team, so it would require me to sign a few more players.

After a quick search, I could fill one of my striker roles with a player coming through my youth team and my 3 rotating Defenders are all English. As one of them can play DR as well I would be up to 5 players.

I would have to dip into the transfer market for the midfield.

I would welcome this rule in real life. Arsenal only started with one English player on the pitch in a third of their Premier League games this year, hence the reason Wenger is so opposed to it.

Of the big four, Man Utited were the best with 4.28 English players in their starting line up.

Only Aston Villa and West Ham had more than an average of 6 players starting the game.

498 players started premier games this season, only 170 of them were English. This is an average of 3.9 players. Spain had 6.9 Spanish players starting each game and Italy had 7.3.

It is no wonder that Capeelo says we have a small pool of players to choose from. Bring the rule on I say, if only to watch Wenger wet his pants.

Originally posted by WIGAN!!:

This will never happen, the only thing Fifa could get away with is limiting the amount of non eu players. saying an eu player cant work for a club is against the law.... Sky sports news said so this morning

It doesn't need to be the case. If 5 + 6 refers to the match day squad, that would mean that the number of foreign players in the match day squad is limited. You could still have a large number of foreign players in the squad, they would be picking up a wage and training. You would just be more reluctant to buy foreign players, as they would get less opportunities than homegrown players.

If it was that you could only have a limited number of foreign players in your squad, that would be illegal under EU law.

As far as I know, limiting the number of overseas players in a match squad is a question of football rules, not the jurisdiction of EU law. I might be wrong though!

I had a read of the BBC article, very interesting.

The key sentence, to me, is as follows: "...broader pool of average players rather than a deeper one of the right level of talent..."

Ultimately, any type of quota system or affirmative action scheme, no matter where you apply it, will lower standards in the short term.

Will it raise standards in the medium term? Hard to say, but from a Premier League point of view, I can see why they're opposed.

I usually go for the home grown players if I can in my games. In FM, I doubt it'll prove a problem, as the best teams will be able to monopolize the best players.

IRL, however, this could upset the "big 4" quicker than you could imagine, and teams like Blackburn, Villa, Everton and West Ham could start winning things.

I think this would be fantastic for the national side too.

I do fear for the future of my club though. Being an Arsenal fan, we've barely had 3 or 4 englishmen in the squad since the 1998-1999 season.

Hang on, the reason these figures dropped (and only by 11 I may add) is due to a higher proportion of British and Irish players, I bet! Sunderland had twice as many non English Brits and Irish in their squad as English. That makes much better reading. You have to remember that there is a unique situation it England due to the fact we are an island made up of three countries, with another country in a union on another island attatched to another country! So these players would not be eligable to play for England. Yet Im sure they wouldnt see it that way, they ae British after all! But Blatter cant grant special dispensation to England. Then the Germans would come saying about the Turks, or the Austrians. The Dutch about the Belgians. The French with the African players. The Spanish with Andorra! So what can FIFA do. Nothing! It cannot realistically happen

Sorry the numbers dropped by 21 not 11

Originally posted by jedclough:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by WIGAN!!:

This will never happen, the only thing Fifa could get away with is limiting the amount of non eu players. saying an eu player cant work for a club is against the law.... Sky sports news said so this morning

It doesn't need to be the case. If 5 + 6 refers to the match day squad, that would mean that the number of foreign players in the match day squad is limited. You could still have a large number of foreign players in the squad, they would be picking up a wage and training. You would just be more reluctant to buy foreign players, as they would get less opportunities than homegrown players.

If it was that you could only have a limited number of foreign players in your squad, that would be illegal under EU law.

As far as I know, limiting the number of overseas players in a match squad is a question of football rules, not the jurisdiction of EU law. I might be wrong though! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Think you might be spot on there Jed. If the limit applies only to the match day squad then it is not really preventing an EU player from working. They still get a wage, still train and do whatever else, they're just not definatley going to get a start on matchday. Which is how things are now. Nobody is guarenteed a starting 11 place

That would surely avoid problems with the law.

Anyway, with regards to FM, I think it would have to be implemented carefully. In terms of regens and Manager AI. The balance would have to be found between there being enough decent regens to be playable and a realistic level of regen skill.

If the rule is implemented, in RL and FM, then I can see a lot of people complaining about the quality of English regens. Not because of the regen system but just because English players aren't as great as some people think. The more reliance put on English players then the more people will notice the disparity between English youth and other Nationalities. So a little, unrealistic, upping of English regens might be required to keep some happy.

As for the way I play the game I can see it having an affect. I like to have a good homegrown presence but I rarely manage rich clubs, so I can therefore rarely afford it. Normally I'm quite tight with the purse strings so I may have to spend alot more just to meet the quota. I think it would make managing rich clubs alot easier, and maybe those with good academies. Every team inbetween I can see being a struggle.

Just thought, in the RL sense, I think maybe making the rule optional and rewarding it's use would be better. There'd be less opposition I reckon.

Teams that play within the rule could get more prize money or big grants to improve their training and youth facillities. Plus there would be the added kudos of beating teams who don't play by the rule.

I think that, in the long term, would have better impact on the amount of decent homegrown players, and maybe level the playing field a little more between teams who have the money and those who don't.

im pretty sure they can get round the law.

a team could still have a load of johnny foriengners, just they can only play 5 in a single game, the players are still training (working)everyday and getting paid so the rule is not stopping them from working.

couldnt teams work around the rule though, just do what they are doing now with the hoimegrown rule and just get players at 15, then they would apply for a british citezenship and technically be british, so technically arsenal could stil have a team from all corners of the globe and not a single person born in british, just wil1 players who have lived in britain for 5 years

I don't see why is so much of "tragedy" about all this. Not. Forrest, Liverpool reigned Europe when there was "3 foreigner " rule and Ipswich town won UEFA cup twice then.

Would it hurt EPL at first? Yes it will more then others, but in long run will be more beneficial to EPL, clubs and British football as whole.

At least they will try to go back and "groom" some better domestic players, which will be reflected in FM anyways.

i don't think it would be bad atall, it gives other players the chance to shine who are being held out of there position by foreigners and could turn out to be better - scotland is finding more and more talented youngsters ( steven fletcher ) and our youth ranks are improving all the time, and if your a smaller like say Hull fc then not only your team will not be weakened by this rule as other teams will have to follow the rule aswell

My Triestina game would suffer. My Italian youngsters are trash and because Triestina have so many rivals, I can't sign too many Italian players easily.

Originally posted by PaulHartman71:

tbh, in recent years the Scottish and Northern Irish national teams have played better than England's, if anything their leagues will get better.

I disagree, just look at the World Rankings.

It won't matter anyway, the European Commission announced that it was illegal to do so. Thank the lord.

In my current game with Celtic I could probably put out an all Scottish team, but only 4 are first choice at the moment, although it might only be 3. It sounds like a player is only technically Scottish if he's eligible for the national team, which would mean Aiden McGeady is a foreigner even though he's from Glasgow.

Originally posted by PaulHartman71:

tbh, in recent years the Scottish and Northern Irish national teams have played better than England's, if anything their leagues will get better.

But then you have to look at the fact that most of the N.I, Scottish, Welsh players play in the English leagues.

Although it will never be implemented and has already been thrown out of the EU teams like Cardiff, Wrexham, Swansea etc would have been forced to play in the Welsh league as thats their location. As they would be forced to play 6 nationals of Wales as that is the nationality of their club but then if they are in the English league they would also be forced to play 6 English due to the nationality of the league. Therefore making it a completly ridiculous motion.

Either way no point ever worrying about this. It breaks ever employment law in the Eu. They could only make a law that limits the number on non-eu players. But even then the majority of the Africans can still move as EU members as all they have to do is declare for France etc.

The African national teams would lose all their top players to France and the other EU nations they are eligible for as they all want to play in Europe and this quota system would mean they could not move as freely.

Anyway all this has done is confirm Blatter is the biggest nonce in football ever. He continues to pursue this even though as he says "I know its illegal, but laws can be changed", so he thinks he is more powerful than the EU commision. Who have already said they will not.

"The implementation by Fifa of this proposal in the European Union would violate EU law," said an EC spokesman.

"The Commission is not considering any change to allow Fifa to push forward this idea. Fifa is aware of this fact."

6+5 would ruin my club team. I managed to get the England international job and it's a hard enough struggle to find good players for that.

My team will be fairly badly hit if it counts only players who can play for England, as I only have 4 Englishmen in my First Squad (24 players), I'd be better off if it counted British players as non-foreign as I'd then have an extra 3 players, whereas if it included players who'd obtained English Nationality (assuming all my EU players took up English Nationality) I had have another 10 players.

Thankfully it'll never get past EU Law, whilst restricting Nationalites (About the only way it would get past is by changing to be like the UEFA Homegrown rule, but state that the players had to have been at the club since the age of 7 or something stupid like that, so it doesn't restrict on Nationality but pick an age range so the odds of a club signing a foreign kid of that age are really low).

How would British players fit into this? Would a Scottish player count as foreign for an English team?

I dont know how they would be classed these days but I remember when Mark Hateley played for rangers he and his English colleagues were classed as foreigners when Rangers played in europe.

We've managed it in Rugby League for about 10 years, where the number of foreign players permitted is limited, and it's worked sucessfully. The only ones playing here now are of high quality, and they help blood the new british talent as well.

i'd actually be okay at Arsenal (ironically). i have been buying more non-english players than usual in the last few seasons, but i always increase the number of english players when i create arsenal games.

i think it could be ok, not good or bad, but for FM09 when it comes out i think you should have the option for to use the rule in you game.