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Which Scots Clubs Are Against ‘6+5’ Rule?

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It’s being reported that six of the 12 SPL clubs are against FIFA’s proposals to implement this new rule as from the 2013/14 season. I wonder who they are?

According to Sepp Blatter and his posse of internationally recognised revolutionary geniuses (!), the rule to enforce clubs to have six players from their own country on the field of play at any one time will greatly benefit the sport around the world, particularly when it comes to international competition.

There’s definitely an argument to say that the rule could help the likes of Scotland to bring through more young talent if they have much more of a genuine chance of playing for the top clubs here, and you’d also have to imagine that there’s also the potential for it to help the level of competition increase in our own domestic league.

Although the gap at the top of the SPL continues to be ridiculously wide between the Old Firm and the rest, I think we can safely say that our two biggest clubs have been considerably weaker in recent times, particularly Rangers. Is it a coincidence that this has happened at a time when the money that used to go on signing big names from abroad on huge contracts has dried up, leaving them with little alternative but to sign the best that our own country has to offer? I would think probably not.

Therefore if every club in the league was forced to fill at least half of their team with homegrown players, isn’t there every chance that the playing field could be somewhat levelled? And although the initial standards may drop as a result, in the long-term perhaps it can only help to gradually raise the standard of your average Scottish player breaking through to top-level football.

I say this because the days of the Old Firm signing young Scottish players only to freeze them out of football during their most important years (Derek Riordan, Paul Ritchie, Kenny Miller, Allan Johnston are just a few example) could well become a thing of the past. This could surely only help our game.

So with this in mind, I’d say it was a safe bet that the Old Firm clubs will make up two of the six who are against this new rule, and I’d say that the other banker is our own club, Hearts. Could you seriously see Mr Romanov and co being happy about having such a restriction placed on their plans to showcase players from their own homeland over here? Not a chance.

As for the other three, well, take your pick. There are several arguments against the new rule that do stand up too, not to mention the question of where the international labour laws sit in relation to this, so a lot of it could simply come down to your own interpretation of what might happen.

Sepp Blatter has come out with some controversial stuff in the past but I do think the reasoning behind this particular proposal has more sense to it than many of those. Anything that could potentially help our own domestic game as well as the national side can only be good…..or at the very least is worth considering.

But will it happen?





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MrH

Come on the famous!

25 comments

  • Stood Free says:

    ‘I wonder who they are?’ – Think I just answered your question on Vital Aberdeen!

  • R.K says:

    To be honest i think the rule is ridiculous. We don’t want club football turning into international football. It only weakens Scottish teams in Europe.

  • MrH says:

    …temporarily RK, but perhaps long-term we’d see a resurgence……

  • MrH says:

    Yeah SF just noticed your article….you sure that Aberdeen only had an average of less than one Scottish player in their side last season though? Might want to edit that!

  • StockportJambo says:

    “It only weakens Scottish teams in Europe”. Ask yourself one question RK. How many Scots did Aberdeen have in their team – the last Scottish club to win a European trophy? How many did Dundee Utd have in their European runs around the same period? Don’t forget that this would apply across all countries… which means the likes of Real Madrid, Milan, Barca, Liverpool, Man Utd etc would be shackled by the same guidelines & would be similarly “weakened”. I think it’s a great idea – but the EU have already come out and said it’s a non-starter, so there would be a lot of bargaining and negotiation to do to get it off the ground. Can’t see it happening, but it would be good for all of football if it did.

  • hoopymo says:

    i like the idea if they can clear up some things. mcgeady has a scottish passport yet plays for ireland .would he count as home grown or foreign. same goes to some of the irish lads who are in our youth system like o’dea . and would it have to be 6 scottish players or 6 british players. thats where i get confused

  • StockportJambo says:

    I’d imagine it would be 6 Scottish players. Scotland has always been a seperate nation where football is concerned.

  • Stood Free says:

    ‘mcgeady has a scottish passport’. Where do we get one of these?!

    And MrH, did edit it just before I read that!

  • hoopymo says:

    sorry mix up of words, meant british passport. and was born in scotland

  • StockportJambo says:

    It would be an interesting side effect to this rule if it came in. Players would perhaps be more keen to play for the country of their birth & upbringing rather than using technical loopholes to give themselves a slightly better chance of playing in a major finals…

  • Specs Haver says:

    Hmmm … is this not a re-launch of an idea that he came up with a few years back ? But that one was more more sensible (in my opinion) – namely that he wanted a rule where every team had to play a certain number of players who had been developed “in-house” (i.e. through that club’s youth system) – regardless of nationality. As stated above, the EU have already indicated that the latest “6 + 5” rule will not comply with European employment law. Personally, I like the original “in-house” proposal, since it might instill a better discipline into the way clubs organise themselves – instead of a large player turnover on a yearly basis, that “cycle” may become a bit longer. Football as it exists today is pretty awful when you think about it – money buys success more than it ever did (although in Hearts case, money buys nothing but embarrassment these days)

  • hoopymo says:

    its mainly to stop teams like arsenal and man utd stealing foriegn players from other teams youth systems (gerard pique and fabregas good examples of this)

  • MrH says:

    Yeah I liked the “in-house” idea as well SH – this allowed clubs who put time and money into developing their own talent at least some chance of reward. Shame this probably won’t happen – would be nice to think we could revisit the days when Scottish club sides containing mostly Scots could be successful in Europe.

  • R.K says:

    SJ, yes i understand that. But when Celtic got to the Uefa Cup final in 2003, how many Scots were in that team? In modern football this rule would be diabolical for Scottish Football. Its all fair and well saying Aberdeen had 11 Scots playing for them this year in the Uefa cup but how far did they get? There is not enough Scottish talent compared to bigger counties like Spain, France, Germany etc.

  • StockportJambo says:

    RK, there is of course the counter-argument to that which is that if Scottish talent was considered “important” by the big clubs, there would be more opportunities for them and more emphasis on building it. Scotland has always been (as a nation) gifted at football. For our size, we could all name half a dozen or more truly “world class” players that we’ve produced over the years. Scotland runs itself down precisely because the game is overrun by foreign players. There is neither the opportunity to progress nor therefore the incentive for young Scottish lads to play football like they used to. I believe the purpose of this idea (and that’s all it is) is to bring that opportunity back – an attempt to fight against so-called “modern” football which is dominated by greed & money & agents. Back to something which is more like the club & international football that we grew up watching. Clubs would still be able to have their “star” foreign imports – they just wouldn’t take the places that could be taken by local lads. You might think that’s a bad idea for Scottish football, but I don’t.

  • MrH says:

    Agreed SJ.

  • R.K says:

    I see what you are saying SJ. We’ll agree to disagree.

  • hoopymo says:

    thing is i’d like to see celtic play cillian sheridan and a few others from the youth system who look good enough but i also dont want talent like kevin mcdonald to waste away at a big club, its players like him that make the smaller clubs worth watching imo (also how is dimitru copil an branamir kostadinov doing for hearts unders team?)

  • MrH says:

    Not all that great I’ve been told. One of them has been in the huff for 2-3 months!

  • hoopymo says:

    im guessing that ones copil as he seemed a bit of a primadonna when the signing talks were on. shame he was quoted as the Romanian frank lampard and you lot have him for 7 years (6 now) if im right

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