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Zola's thumbs up for quota move
Ken Dyer, Evening Standard28 Feb 2008
Gianfranco Zola today became the latest high-profile football figure to back Sepp Blatter's campaign to limit the number of foreign players in domestic leagues. The former Chelsea star, one of English football's most successful imports, believes the balance has now swung too far away from homegrown talent.
His views echo the fears of FIFA president Blatter who, having torpedoed the Premier League's 39th game proposal, remains on a collision course with chief executive Richard Scudamore over the quota scheme.
Blatter wants teams to field a minimum of six players from the country where the club are based by 2011 but faces fierce resistance from Scudamore and Premier League clubs who claim the plan is illegal under European law.
Zola's sympathies, however, lie with the FIFA chief. "Having so many foreign players is not helpful for the locals," said the 41-year-old, now joint coach of Italy's Under-21s.
"When I first started at Napoli, there were world-class players like Maradona and Careca but you could learn a lot from them and there was also space to play.
"That is difficult now - there are seven or eight foreign players in a team. A quota is a good idea to reduce the numbers of foreign players. For the young players it is important to have good players in front of them, but they must also have the hope of playing."
In Blatter's eyes, the problem is one of footballing nations losing their identity and has targeted 2011 for the implementation of his plan. A decade ago, when foreign players and their agents first saw what was on offer in England, they swiftly booked their flights. And they were welcomed.
Zola, Dennis Bergkamp, Paolo Di Canio, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira enriched our game and made the Premier League more appetising. Now, though, the trickle has increased into a steady stream and the quality of foreign players, in the opinion of many commentators, has been diluted.
As such, according to luminaries like Blatter, Michel Platini, Franz Beckenbauer, big importers such as England should fear for the future of their game.
Lord Triesman, the Football Association's new chairman, is sufficiently swayed to claim the theory on quotas should be further examined. This problem, though, is not only about the established stars, it also relates to the increasing number of young foreign imports learning their skills in the clubs' academies and preventing emerging English players from breaking through.
UEFA president Platini is particularly strident on this subject. "I'm against this view," he said. "We must take care of a club's identity. I don't like the system that scours other countries for the best young talent."
Platini believes in principle with imposing limits but knows European law could sink a quota plan. "The implementation by FIFA of such a rule in the European Union would violate EU law," said an EC spokesman.
Blatter, however, is still prepared to champion the concept. His "six-plus-five" quota proposal will be voted upon at the next FIFA congress in May. Should member countries support the plan, the next move would be for the governing body's lawyers to find a method of global implementation. Blatter said: "Go to any country and ask the population if they like their national team. They like the national anthem, the national colours, to be together. We must protect the national identity of clubs. They no longer have their own national players in their ranks and we need to strengthen the clubs and then the national team."
The FIFA president also has two powerful allies in Beckenbauer and Sir Alex Ferguson. "I agree [with Blatter] but there would be opposition from clubs like Liverpool and Arsenal," said the Manchester United boss.
Bayern Munich president Beckenbauer said: "England is suffering because of the situation and in Germany it's the same.
"The youngsters have problems getting through as teams prefer to buy foreigners. It's cheaper and they are not patient enough to wait for a young boy to get into the first team."
When Sir Trevor Brooking made his West Ham debut, in August 1967, the club's foreign imports were limited to a pair of Scots, goalkeeper Bobby Ferguson and defender John Cushley. Times have changed but Brooking, the FA's director of football development, is committed to solving the problem a different way other than strict quotas.
He wants to standardise coaching methods so that promising young English talent is nurtured and developed from an early age to an extent that the clubs have no need to pack their academies with foreign players.
In the meantime, though, this weekend's quota-less Premier League teams will, as usual, be brimming with foreign talent. Not for much longer though, if Blatter has his way.
