By Paul Nicholson
August 28 – Russia is poised to embark on a programme of football reform in a bid to improve the standard and competitiveness of its national team and club sides in advance of the 2018 World Cup. The proposals include quotas on overseas players – called legionnaires in the draft bill – as well as regulation of how clubs spend their cash.
Former Russian coach Valeriy Gaazaev presented a far reaching programme of football reform titled ‘Football Russia. Time of changes’ earlier this week, while Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko said that a bill regulating the number of foreign players competing in Russian sports clubs had been drafted, and was ready to be submitted for voting to Russian lawmakers.
The new football law would bring the game into line with a proposed new law regulating quotas for foreign athletes and limit for number of overseas players in the Russian Football Premier League.
Proposals (the law covers all sports) would create the introduction of obligatory criteria for foreign players, including their athletic qualification, age, period of permanent stay in Russia as well as their period of training in Russia and results achieved while competing for Russian sports clubs.
The bill will be submitted to the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, this autumn and may be possibly passed in the final reading next spring.
Igor Ananskikh, the head of the State Duma’s Committee for Physical Culture and Sport, said the reduction in the number of foreign players would provide for the better preparation of the national team for the 2018 World Cup.
“Russia is hosting the World Cup in 2018 and we are interested that our national team performs successfully,” Ananskikh told news agency ITAR-TASS. “It is still too early to talk about the numbers, but in my opinion the number of legionnaires hitting the field from each football club can be reduced to five.”
Currently Russian Football Premier League rules allow seven foreign players on the pitch at any single time.
Under Italian coach Fabio Capello, Russia qualified for their first World Cup for 12 years in Brazil, having failed to make it to the finals in Germany or South Africa. The Russians failed to make it out of the group stages in Brazil.
Gazaaev in his proposals takes the requirement of quotas even further suggesting that one under 21 player, qualified for Russia, should be in the starting line-up of every Russian Premier League team from the start of next season. He says that naturalisation of players should be considered.
Gaazaev said that the creation of a pathway to success for the Russian team in the 2018 World Cup should be based on four principles: a creation of competitive and strong championship; successful participation of the Russian teams in the European championships; a change in the economics of the football clubs (from government to increased private finance; and a popularization of the game in Russia – currently ice hockey and figure skating are the country’s most popular sports.
Within the proposals are restructuring of the Russian leagues into two divisions. The Premier League would comprise of 18 clubs while there would be 36 in the First Division – which would be sub-divided into three semi-professional regions.
On commercial matters Gaazaev said that the league should be covered by two broadcasters – enabling more football coverage on TV and the creation of a stronger commercial product.
Gaazaev also suggested that professional Russian dedicate 10% of their prize money to the development of the youth academies, while there should be a programme of licensing coaches. There are about 10,000 coaches working in Russia, but only a third hold a license.
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