Press Release
07/05/2008White Paper on Sports: The European Parliament asks FIFA to abolish '6+5' rule. Ivo Belet MEP
The European Parliament has asked the international football association, FIFA, in its report on the White Paper on Sports, to do away with the controversial '6+5' rule and to instead back the 'home-grown' rule introduced by UEFA. The report will be adopted in the European Parliament's plenary session tomorrow. The '6+5' rule, which FIFA wants to approve during its congress in Sydney on 30 May, says that 6 out of 11 players in a team need to be on hand for the national team. This means that a club can have maximum 5 foreign players in a team.
Ivo Belet MEP, Member of the Sports Committee and Rapporteur for the report on the future of professional football in Europe, commented: "FIFA wants to oblige clubs to invest more in 'home-grown' talent, a goal which we support a 100%. Unfortunately, however, the '6+5' rule is not compatible with the free movement of persons in the EU. The European Treaty is very clear on this point: discrimination on the basis of nationality is not allowed; this also counts for football. With the '6+5' rule, FIFA is going back to the era before the Bosman verdict."
"We therefore ask FIFA to join forces with the European Parliament (and the European Commission) and fully back the 'home-grown' rule: football clubs need to have a minimal number of locally-trained players in the team of core players (8 out of 25 players, of which 4 trained by the club and 4 trained in the same league)."
"The 'home-grown' rule is not perfect and is fairly modest in its approach, but it does encourage clubs to invest more in locally-trained talent and therefore deserves our full support. Moreover, this measure does not impose any limitations as regards the nationality of the players."
The White Paper on Sports lists the European policy plans for sports, a field where the EU gets a bigger say with the new Lisbon Treaty. The goal is to keep sports competitive and fair, through support for local talent, coordinated European action against doping, racism and corruption and measures to curb the financial rat race between sport clubs. Europe wants to back sporting organisations and Member States and prevent sports being ruined by pure business interests and court cases.
For further information:
Ivo Belet MEP, Tel: +32-2-2845623
Greet Gysen, EPP-ED Press Service, Tel: +32-497-028054
Notes to Editors:
The EPP-ED Group is the largest political group in the European Parliament with 288 Members from all 27 Member States.
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