Foreigner rule faces Euro block

Updated 17.50 Wed May 28 2008
Keywords: six-plus-five rule, european commission, uefa, vladimir spidla, football, fifa, sepp blatter, sport

The European Commission has criticised Sepp Blatter's plans to limit the number of foreign players in football teams.

Blatter wants a minimum of six local players in every team and his proposal will be discussed at a Fifa meeting in Australia this weekend.

"We are giving the red card to the six-plus-five rule" - Vladimir Slidla

But the Commission insists the proposal would be outlawed by EU discrimination rules.

Vladimir Spidla, Europe's Commissioner for Equal Opportunities, said: "We are giving the red card to the six-plus-five rule."

European football's governing body Uefa has proposed a home-grown player limit, which would allow foreign players to represent clubs as long as they were trained in the team's home country for at least three years while they were young.

Spidla added: "Compared with the intentions announced by Fifa to impose the so-called six-plus-five rule which is directly discriminatory and therefore incompatible with the EU law, the home-grown players rule proposed buy Uefa seems to me to be proportionate and to comply with the principle of free movement of workers."

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