The Big Downside of 6+5

By: Daryl | May 9th, 2008

Blatter bad Yesterday, I posted about Sepp Blatter’s determination for 6+5 (no more than five foreigners on any team, but you know that by now, right?) and how that was going to make greedy Premier League chief exec Richard Scudamore cry. I was sort of in favour of the idea, mostly because I’d love to see Richard Scudamore cry. But some insightful comments on the post persuaded me otherwise.

I still believe 6+5 would make European football a lot more even. There’d be no more Champions League semifinals with 75% Premier League teams for example. And 6+5 would make each league a lot more reflective of the actual talent in that country. But the huge downside is that while the money would stay in Europe, the flow of talent coming to Europe would slow to a trickle.

Right now, even in you’re born in the poorest of nations, there’s still almost nothing to stop you playing for a big, rich European club. That’s the dream that fuels talented young players in all parts of the world. But as soon as there are limits placed on foreigners, that dream is diminished. So 6+5 essentially denies talented footballers from poorer nations the opportunity to earn the same wage, and achieve the same success as someone born in a wealthy football country. Basically Justin Hoyte would have a more successful career than Kolo Toure, which just seems insane.

It also denies spectators the chance to truly see the world’s best footballers. It’s reasonable to assume that certain superstars who give us so much pleasure with their talents right now, wouldn’t be on the big teams and so wouldn’t be playing in front of a global audience.

You could argue that the cream always rises to the top. But you can also argue that 6+5 puts obstacles in the way of the ceram rising to the top. Take Leo Messi for example. Would Barcelona have taken a gamble on a young Argentinean kid with a growth deficiency if 6+5 was in place?

Leo Messi 6+5 Those five first team spots will be so precious, clubs aren’t going to take as many risks. And maybe Messi would have made it. He’s an exceptional talent. But I’d still argue that certain quality players would fall through the net and never get the chance to shine for big European clubs if there were only five first team spots available on each team. So why make it even harder for those players?

And though 6+5 would increase equality between European leagues and European club teams, it would undo a lot of the progress towards equality in international football. Take Didier Droga for example. Born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire but moved to France with family at the age of five. To play in the French league (as he did with Le Mans, EAG and Marseille) Drogba would almost certainly have had to pledge his international future to France. Great news for France. Horrible news for Côte d’Ivoire.

So it’s probably good news that the EU voted against Blatter’s 6+5 plan by 518 to 49 yesterday. Pretty overwhelming. The EU argument is that 6+5 contravenes freedom of movement for EU workers, and instead favour UEFA’s more realistic proposal to set a quota for homegrown players trained by the club, regardless of nationality.

The freedom of EU workers maybe isn’t the best reason to oppose 6+5. A footballer can earn a decent living in most EU countries. But 6+5 effectively constrains the movement of players from the rest of the world entering the money-filled arena of European football, denying them the chance to shine on foreign fields and denying us the pleasure of watching them do it.