Like everyone else seemingly is (other than the people at FIFA and Platini at UEFA), I’m very much against this proposal. Ty, jm, and Paul Bestall all make good points, and I’d go one step further by saying that this plan would be the death of the Premier League as we’ve gotten to know it.

Teams have been used to bringing in foreign players, partly because they’re cheaper when they’re younger than English players of the same talent level, but mostly because foreign players are simply better than British players. Limiting the amount of foreign players in the PL would dilute the exciting product that we’re seeing.

Think about it, the league’s top goal scorer and best player (Ronaldo) is foreign, the league’s best striker (Torres) is foreign, nine of the top ten goal-scoring leaders over the past year are foreign, the best goalkeeper is foreign (Cech, and it goes on and on and on. The reality is that there’s just not enough good English players to be able to start six of them at the same time and keep up the same entertaining product we know and love now.

In the meantime, I will say briefly that I think this proposal ignores the real reasons for club inequity in Europe, which are about the flow of money, particularly Champions League revenue. The 6+5 solution is an appeal to (a) nationalism about national sides and (b) in some, xenophobic reactions to foreigners in local leagues rather than a real solution. Market adjustments will elevate the value of top-tier English talent (to take the EPL example), and as long as the money inequities exist in such stark form, all this rule would do is readjust the nationalities of the dominating sides. It’s expected boons for the national side are tenuous as well, as they could just as easily be gained by a greater investment in the national training and infrastructure programs.

Anyway, I’ll defend these claims in greater detail if you ever get around to writing a longer defense of the proposed rule.

All pointless though because no matter how powerful Fifa and Uefa think they are, they arent more powerful than the European Union and Blatter’s plans contravene EU laws.

The problem with English footballers is the coaching. It isn’t a “lack of access” to the Premier League. It is the fact that kids with talent are not coached. When you look at English players even the most talented ones – Gerrard, Rooney – they have obvious flaws in their game. The flaws never get corrected at a young age because coaches go crazy over their talent and push them through. You see the same problem with American players in basketball. Name me a French or Italian player who has obvious technical flaws.

The biggest problem is that the coaching structure in Britain is appalling, very few clubs look to sign skillful and technical superior youngsters, the majority want big, strong,fast players who run all day and couldn’t trap a bag of cement.

Look at Shaun Wright Phillips, a winger that Chelsea paid £25 million for, whos crossing is so wildly inconsistent as to be ineffectual but he can run fast all day.

That’s the problem and until the whole way youth players are coached is completely changed, nothing will improve at all. Once again FIFA comes up with the wrong solution to the problem. The players aren’t getting in because they’re too expensive and simply not good enough.