FIFA President Sepp Blatter
/ AP Photos/MTI, Laszlo Beliczay
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Wednesday that he wants all legal issues to be settled before implementation of a planned new rule that would limit the number of foreign players allowed on a team from 2012.
Blatter indicated that the rule would be implemented gradually, beginning with a maximum of eight foreign players in teams' starting lineups reducing to a maximum of five after a few years.
"We hope that in (2012) we'll start with '3+8,' then '4+7' and so on," Blatter said after a meeting of sports authorities in the Hungarian parliament. "But we will not implement something before we have a clear legal situation, because if we do not ... a player can immediately go to the European Court of Justice ... and then the whole matter would be a debacle. We have to avoid another Bosman case."
Blatter was referring to a European Court Of Justice ruling involving Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman which established the right of players to move clubs freely once their contracts expired and found that the strict limits on foreigners were illegal.
Blatter says FIFA's "6+5" plan was backed at Wednesday's meeting by several other sports associations looking to adopt similar rules, including those representing international basketball, handball, and hockey.
The group adopted a "Budapest Declaration" which concluded by saying that "The time to act is now."
The statement said that sports were in danger of losing their national identities and cultural heritage, that it was necessary to restore a "healthy balance between sports and business" and avoid the dominance of only the richest clubs and countries.
