Blatter Shows His Lack Of Class

Spot on Kev. If a player is good enough, he will play. That's not just the case at Arsenal, but at every club in the world. There's not something wrong with the lack of English players, but there's definantly something wrong with Blatter. What a *****er!

Well said Gordon. It's like your boss saying that you're only having 5 foreigners in each class. It's just not cricket!

Bl@tter is g@y... just like al@n H@as0n

Ok... now some talk. If this rule comes 1) the price tag for the english players will go up like anything 2) the quality of the league will go into the drains 3) International support for all the league teams from all over the world will be reduced dramatically... then there wont be any difference between fighting for CL spot and fighting in champoinship. H@ns0n thought we'll be out from the top4 because we lack PlanB now he suddenly thinks we are competent enough... what a bull$hit

as Knight said iif the plans went through, the rprice of English players would escalate even further. Then, the quality would most probably disintegrate. The interest in the 'product' would drop. The satellite paymasters would no longer be falling over themselves to throw such huge sums of cash at the domestic game, due to the lack of glamour involved. Clubs would have less to spend on players. Prices would be forced to drop.

Anyhows, Arsenal would be affected not so much by this, as our english youngsters are nearer and nearer the standard Arsene has been aiming for. Regarding the young foreigners we have who, by the nature of them joining the club at a tender age, become 'nationalised' or 'assimilated' players (whichever/whatever it is...), can anyone tell me if this would be likely to affect the status these players acquire? As with the whole CL ruling the other your regarding clubs required to have a certain quota of homegrown players in their CL squad, we were hardly affected by this, so again, would this largely leave us unaffected? »»Arsene Knows««

Agree with you all the way on this. You'll make the team if you're good enough, not because of where you're born.

blatter, who voted for him.. ****s

ah nothing better than fans of all sides getting united around the same cause! Brings back memories of the Red Army revolution when we were all equal... jokes aside, I found myself in total agreement of all what was said - even Kevin!! Blatter: "one day you'll say we don't want.. blah blah.." what is this? Sounds like some of the plonkers from my neighbourhood who sit around and argue all night about issues they have no f@ckin' clue. There is something wrong, yes. It is you Sepp Blater. Someone should ask how much did he fork to the poor FAs to vote for him? Corrupt w@nker.

Blatter hasn't really thought about the effects of his plan. He wants to help the development of players, so he reasons that english players, for example, have to be given the chance - at the moment their chance is being taken by evl africans, south americans etc. But who is benefitting in the end? Nobody! Club soccer will go down, english players will get worse due to the lack of comeptition, the belarussian league will still not be world class, and talents like Ade, Drogba, and McCarthy will be lost to the world, kicking punctured balls with their bare feet on dusty fields. Thanks Sepp, life must be tough in Switzerland...

It is quite funny that there is a descent into personal abuse of Blatter when he’s probably at least as well educated as most who post and has many years experience of working in football as well as other sports. He singled out Wenger as Wenger was the only one who piped up about his proposals. Other managers think the same but keep quiet. The players you mention are not relevant – they are A class, not the B or C class who also move to many clubs and yes I can say people like Tainio and Rocha at Spurs. Quotas have worked in many sports to improve the level of domestic performance, and the performance of Italian clubs and the Italian National Team improved considerably when overseas players were completely banned in the 70s. I think no foreigners play in Aussie domestic cricket but it doesn’t stop it being the best in the world or them having the best national team. Blatter will also point out that this does not necessarily lower standards; AC Milan won the CL final with 7 Italians in their XI. The Premiership is an anomaly due to its excessive wealth and in Spain and Italian they can produce winning teams and attractive leagues having 63-74% domestic players unlike 36% here. Employment Law is a funny thing. Every week there seems to be exemptions being made, and it can be argued that because football clubs represent a restricted employment market in terms of limits of clubs per division in each league, restrictions need to flow the other way as well. I mean you can’t just create a professional club and start competing in the Premiership!! English players are expensive because everyone knows English clubs are rich, a phenomena now occurring when Russian clubs come looking for players as well and this occurs when they look at any player domestic or from overseas. Many clubs overpay but there are still bargains and as you say you have a decent crop of English youngsters in the pipeline. What may happen if players are excessively priced is that they will sign shorter contracts and there will be more 'free' movement or clubs selling at discounts because contracts are ending earlier. And despite what some think about international football, 99.9% of players regard representing their country as the pinnacle of their careers

thats all very well said EnglishSpur.. but the point i would like to make here is that if the influx of foreign players is stopped.. it would mean a lot of things.. eg.. imagine arsenal with walcott.. no persie.. ade.. cesc.. imagine united with rooney.. no tevez anderson nani and ronaldo.. imagine chlesea with no fine player up front.. forget drogba or malouda or kalou or robben previously.. imagine ur own **** of a spud squad without berbatov and keane.. yes.. all leads to believe that the quality would be down to crap.. the league would go to the dogs.. talk about quotas and all which improve the level of the national team.. here, the case is not that the english players are not given a chance.. its just that they are given a chance.. they just dont stand up to it or prove in any way that they are better than the plethora of foreign players.. coz if they were they would definitely be in the team.. wenger has given hoyte his chance in defence.. but its simply not his ******** fault that eboue and sagna have proven to be better right backs than him at every damn occasion.. i would ask anybody who agrees with blatter to come up with a right back better than sagna who is available and is english.. u would have a hard time finding one.. look at the case of bale and traore.. traore comes for negligible fee and bale goes for 10m quid.. and i bet u anything that traore turns out to be better than bale.. mark my words on that.. bottomline is.. simply because u want a national team to develop.. u cannot ruin the basic principle of providing the football fan with quality football week in week out.. its not down to the influx of foreign players that the problem lies in.. its a problem with the homegrown players.. they simply cannot put up with it.. and if u reall want the national team to develop.. i would suggest two things.. first.. get a decent manager in and find some stability.. second.. give birth to some ******** good youngsters so they may be played week in week out..

@EnglishSpur: Well, English football is not just covered by EU law. It is also under the FA, and under UK law. It is also under International law. And there are also rules and regulations for each club, and rules and regulations for each players' associations, and for agencies (if that's the case). So your argument here seems to be based on the fact that labor contracts are virtually the same as football contracts, which is not entirely true. They are the same in essence (of being a contract) but not in their substance (with both having different regulations followed, and under different circumstances).

maybe somebody could explain how the rule works that restricts clubs from recruiting players outside a certain area. It somehow means that Arsenal aren't allowed to go into for instance Chelseas territory and recruit a youngster who is living in that territory. I don't know the details, but I read an article a while ago about how that hinders talent coming through.

99.99% of the players playing for the Brazilian national team are playing in different leagues.There is tons of south americans that never played on their country's league, and yet they play very good football. If you're good enough, you'll play anywhere. Unfortunately , great english players are rare, and when you buy something rare, it's obviously expensive.

Welcome back sirkernowmitformanager

I believe Platini is saying that big clubs shouldn't go in and start poaching young players, sometimes as young as 14 and taking them away from their own cultures without on occasion even paying proper compensation to teams. I think maximum numbers should be put on 1st team squads and academies to stop teams stockpiling loads of players/prospects depriving the fans of smaller teams from occasionally watching some top young players before they get buried deep in larger teams reserve squads.

We all live in globalised world now, so why should footballers be different. Without question, if English players were good enough, they'd DEFINITELY be plying their trade somewhere. Lets imagine that there were no foreigners playing in England today whatsoever. That would basically mean that all the positions vacated would be made up by English players playing in the Premier League reserve teams and by those playing in the Championship! Great! - that means the current England squad will be competing with players in the reserves and from the Championship; that standard of play definitely ensures England will win the World Cup!

Well cescfab4, whatever that is meant to mean, there is no way I'm going to accept you as Wallace .... so I'm a dog because I raise some valid points? Everyone keeps on going on about how insane Blatter is with his call for quotas, but some of you don't seem to understand is that football already differs from any other type of work relevant to EC Employment Law, freedom of movement etc. If you think Platini wants to ban transfers take a look at some of the ideas the EC is thinking of, concerning the rights of players to break contracts at any point with no compensation!! A feeble attempt at an insult doesn't stop the fact, that unless FIFA & UEFA succeed in getting football (and other sport) made an exemption, the next Bosman type ruling WILL destroy the game!! So Cescfab4 and others ... GROW UP!!!