Foreign invasion hit big five's Euro hopes, says UEFA

UEFA chiefs today admitted that the performance of the ‘Big Five’ countries in Euro 2004 may have been adversely affected by the number of foreign players in their top leagues.

Italy, Spain and Germany all failed to get through the group stage while France and England were both beaten in the quarter-finals, a similar trend to the last World Cup.

Lars-Christer Olsson, chief executive of UEFA, European football’s governing body, revealed that plans are being prepared to try to tackle the issue.

Speaking at a news conference here in Lisbon, Olsson said: “If you have too many foreign players in your own leagues it become difficult to get your own players coming through.

“The number of foreign players in the big leagues is probably detrimental to the national team in those countries.

“There has been a debate going on in Germany about why it was so difficult to find a top striker and it was found that 67% of strikers in the Bundesliga are non-Germans.”

Olsson said the issue would be raised at a conference of national association heads on Saturday and some proposals on limiting foreign players – but without contravening European labour laws – should be put forward for discussion in the autumn.

One possible model would be to make it part of the club licensing system that all squads must contain a set number of players who have come up through the youth system, though they could be of any nationality.

Olsson believes the Scandinavian countries, and those such as Holland, Portugal and the Czech Republic, are benefiting from exporting their players to clubs in the ‘Big Five’. He also said players in those leagues may be playing too many matches.

He added: “The other associations feeding the five big markets with players are benefiting. They are playing with the best clubs, and those countries where the leagues are less competitive get the advantage of having players in the big leagues in Europe.

“What’s also important is the number of matches players have to play and this has to be discussed and analysed in depth.

“There has been some medical analysis done in different leagues which has found out that if there is a winter break there are fewer injuries at the end of the season. We have to take the health and well-being of players into consideration.”

Olsson proclaimed himself delighted with the Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal however.

He said: “I have been involved in European Championships since 1992 and I think I’m entitled to say that his the best championship ever. The most important thing is that the football is excellent, and the quality has been high and from an organisational point of view we have never been as well prepared.”

Television audiences in Europe are up 26% compared to Euro 2000, and interest has soared globally.

China has reported audiences of 50 million watching some games, double the amount of the highest figures in a European country.