FIFPro Opinion: Home-grown rule

FIFPro is extremely critical of the home-grown rule. The World Players’ Union appreciates the sporting objectives of this UEFA rule, but has a number of legal and practical objections to it.

With the so-called home-grown rule, UEFA is aiming to protect the training of players  and combat the trade in young players. This rule stipulates that each team which plays in an international European competition may include a maximum of 25 players in the squad, of which at least seven must have been trained by clubs which are members of the same national association as the club for which they are playing. UEFA requires that a player must have been at such a club for an uninterrupted period of three years before he can qualify as a home-grown player.

FIFPro is a proponent of players being trained at their own clubs. In order to become a good professional footballer, good training and education are necessary but a footballer also needs to play. FIFPro is of the opinion that a player’s education is only complete once he has played several years for a club’s first team, preferably the club at which he was trained.

In FIFPro’s eyes, the home-grown rule is inadequate because it does not go far enough. The period of three years which a player must spend as an apprentice at a club is too short to be able to label him a home-grown player. A player who is drafted in at the age of 16 is already a home-grown player at 19. That is too soon.

FIFPro believes that the home-grown rule actually promotes the trade in young players. Clubs will now be trying to sign players at a very young age. Research has shown that this rule is encouraging the trade in young African and South American players. Instead of a period of three years, FIFPro is calling for a period of five years to be applied in order to achieve the effect that UEFA and FIFPro have in mind. Only then will the trade in young players diminish.

Another disadvantage is that the home-grown rule appears to restrict the principle of the freedom of movement for persons, as well as costing jobs. Players’ origins are experienced as a hindrance when looking for a new club. As a result of this 18+7 rule, players may be left out of the squad, even if their level of play is no lower than one or more home-grown players. FIFPro opposes any distinctions made on the basis of nationality.

FIFPro is highly critical with regard to the introduction of the 18+7 rule. Furthermore, FIFPro believes that this rule can only be introduced if it simultaneously comes into effect in all 53 of UEFA’s member countries. If this is not the case, there will be an unequal situation with possible detrimental consequences for countries which comply with the rules in contrast to those which do not implement them. So long as it is not certain that this rule will be implemented simultaneously in all 53 UEFA member countries, it must not be introduced.