Russian Football Federation (RFU) grateful to the Ministry of Sports RF for dialogue on the limit on foreign players. The Secretary General spoke about it in an interview RFU Maxim Mitrofanov.
The Ministry of Sports proposes to tighten the limit for foreign players by 2028 according to the “10 foreign players in the application, 5 on the field” scheme.
“The dialogue is ongoing and the Ministry must be thanked for this,” Mitrofanov said. — Formally, the ministry is not obliged to do so, since it is within its powers to change the limit for foreign players. But it’s important to understand the goal. A limit is one of the tools needed for something. The restriction on the use of players who are not eligible to play for the national team is necessary to stimulate our system of training a sports reserve. In order for everyone to pay attention to this, invest efforts and resources. But, probably, only an integrated approach will work, which takes into account both efforts in the development of the reserve training system, and the creation of conditions to protect our players from unfair competition from players trained by other federations.”
“We note that today the share of foreign players in RPL and the Football National League (FNL) does not exceed 2.5%, plus approximately 2% are players from countries with which we have special agreements: Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. These players are not legally legionaries. That is, the maximum is about 5% of all football players. The percentage of playing time for foreigners is now the same as when it was under the strictest limit, which assumed no more than six foreigners on the field. Both then and now – about 40%. At the same time, the percentage of time dedicated to gaming among young Russians is growing: about 18% of the time RPL players under 23 receive. The number of these players in the national team is growing. Over the course of three years, 26 young footballers made their debut there; they don’t take the field occasionally, but practice thoroughly,” added Mitrofanov.
According to the current limit, clubs RPL can include 13 foreign players in the application and release 8 foreign players on the field. In September, the Russian Football Federation said that the current limit allows for the first time to increase the playing time of young players to 18%.
On the popularity of football
Mitrofanov noted the growing popularity of football. “The popularity of football is growing, the average attendance is also growing, despite football being the only sport where you need a fan card to enter the stadium,” he said. — To some this may seem like an administrative obstacle, but now more than 3.5 million Russians have been issued a fan card. Football is the only sport that can provide 100% accurate data on the number of fans attending matches. Average attendance went from 12.5 thousand to over 14 thousand. This suggests we are approaching record levels for the 2018/19 season.”
“Look at the rankings, which say that we have no more watched and watched sporting events than the matches of the Russian national team, the national championship and the national cup. There are certainly matches of the Champions League, world and European championships, which are competitive and even superior in terms of performance, because they are flagship events. But when compared to other sports, even taking into account foreign competitions, there is nothing higher than football in terms of viewership,” the Secretary General added. RFU.
Mitrofanov noted the correct work RFU for the development of football. “Collectively, this shows that we are moving in the right direction: developing youth and investing in football reserves. It is important that even at a meeting of representatives of the association of national football coaches, they said that there may be different interpretations of the limit in terms of demands, but there should be no limit on the field, because a coach is not a mathematician to calculate how many foreign players he currently has on the field, whether he can replace a foreigner or just a Russian player. There are restrictions in both hockey. and basketball, but there are none when it comes to stay on the field. In principle, healthy competition in sport, including internal competition, is beneficial,” he concluded.
