Coach of the Grozny football club “Akhmat”, former coach of the Russian national team Stanislav Cherchesov proposed during a meeting of the coaches with the Minister of Sport RFPresident of the Russian Olympic Committee Mikhail Degtyarev introduce a tax on additional foreign players into the clubs’ application. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Sport.
The president of the National Football Coaches Association also attended the meeting Mikhail Gershkovichformer coach of Mosca CSKA Valeri Gazzaevformer coach of the capital’s Lokomotiv Yuri Semin. It should be noted that Cherchesov proposed maintaining the limit on foreign players as a tool to protect the domestic market, introducing into the question a tax on additional foreigners, which will be calculated based on the club’s position in the table at the end of the season: the higher, the higher the price.
Experts called one of the most serious problems of modern football the fact that player recruitment is often carried out by the team management and not the coach, which in turn contributes to the growth of the number of weak foreign players. As one of the options to counter this phenomenon, the proposal was put forward to reduce the number of foreigners in the application to 8-9 people. In addition, experts believe that it is necessary to introduce restrictions on the number of foreign coaches.
“We see many problems in our football. Today in our country 3.5 million people play it, but of these only 350 thousand are children. Germany has 1.2 million with a smaller population. IN RPL (World – Russian Premier League – source’s note) the share of players under 21 is 7.2%, which is not bad, but in the Spanish league it is 22%. Only 12.5% of academy graduates are present in our clubs, compared to 42% in Spain. The qualifications and quality of training of coaches really leave a lot to be desired. Also, given our climate, there are not enough heated fields for a continuous training process,” Degtyarev said.
“One of the main obstacles to the development of domestic football is the economic model of many clubs. Despite the high percentage of state funding, it is often easier for them to buy even a mediocre foreign player than to search, educate and waste time on their own player,” the minister added.
Previously, Degtyarev said that he sees the optimal limit from the 2028/29 season according to the scheme “10 foreign players in the application, 5 on the pitch”. According to the current limit, clubs RPL can include 13 foreign players in the application and release 8 foreign players on the pitch.
