Football reform in Russia: it is not necessary to abolish the limit, but to give freedom to private business

As you know, at the end of last week, the Russian Football Union (RFU) sent letters to football clubs playing in the Premier League with proposals for the development of football in Russia. In particular, the letter also discussed the possible cancellation of the limit on legionnaires.

Starting from the 2020/21 season, the Premier League has an 8 + 17 limit, where no more than eight foreign players can be added to the application for the season.

RFU President Alexander Dyukov confirmed that the organization wants to abandon the limit on legionnaires:

“The proposal concerns a change in the approach to determining the number of legionnaires. In fact, we can talk about giving up the limit on legionnaires in principle. In 2008, the legionnaires played more than in the 2020/21 season. Nevertheless, our national team performed better”.

This news caused a storm in the football community: is it a joke to say that it is with this limit that many experts associate the total failures of both clubs and the national team on the international arena. Of course, Russian clubs, being commercial enterprises (although the overwhelming majority of them, contrary to common sense, are still financed from the state budget), are only happy with this initiative. Russian football suffers from a limit on foreign players, now clubs are forced to release Russians on the field, even if they are weaker than foreigners. But the officials think quite differently, since they do not care much about the private business and the quality of football, and they only think about the prestige of the national team, not realizing that the national team will never become strong if the clubs are weak. And nevertheless ... For example, the expert "on all issues" deputy Vitaly Milonov harshly criticized the intentions of the RFU:

“You can’t cancel the limit on legionnaires in any case! The State Duma will not allow this, we will not allow it to be done. It would be more correct to create such a limit so that there are no legionnaires in our football at all. The Russian team includes Russian players.

Let our team become a target for our guys, otherwise it turns out that our guys are trying, growing up, and imported Pokemon, Cheburashka and biorobots play in the clubs. The Khazar Kaganate is somehow bred in football. And it always ends badly..."

Interestingly, the proposed reforms were based on an analysis of the Dutch company Hypercube, which did so at the request of the RFU. And it is unnecessary to remind of the highest world prestige of Dutch football. Not only is the national team of this tiny country immeasurably higher in world rankings than the Russian national team, the Dutch footballers play for the best clubs in the world, and in the first roles.

But Milonov enters the scene and, completely not understanding the details of the Dutch study, says such theses. Where it leads? Our football officials will see that Milonov said this, they can consider it as a "signal from above" and curtail the reforms. The results will get worse. The money for the company of Dutch experts who have already reformed so football in Europe will be wasted.

Journalist Kirill Shulika studied the reaction of clubs to this initiative. So far, it does not inspire much optimism:

“In addition to “Rubin”,“ Krasnodar ”and“ Dynamo ”also spoke for the abolition of the limit on foreign players. That, in fact, is the good side.

“Zenith” advocated the possibility of buying unnecessary legionnaire vacancies from clubs. He was supported by "Ufa", which is not surprising, there is a common sponsor, that is, "Gazprom".

"Spartak" for the formula "10 + 15". "Ural" for maintaining the existing limit "8 + 17" or switching to "10 + 15".

That is, in fact, there is no general solution.

Apparently, there will be no reforms, football will continue to roll downward. It just suits everyone. The clubs have money, mostly free. Therefore, no one is responsible for anything. In addition, fans are not needed, as are the press. It's just a purely internal competition between oligarchs and state capitalists..."

And social psychologist Alexey Roshchin paints a bleak picture of what will happen if the limit is canceled. And we must give him his due, he accurately identified the main problem of Russian football:

“During the time the limit was in effect, Rosfootball has already broken through all possible bottoms and switched to free fall mode - this has long been clear to everyone.

It is another matter, however, that correlation does not mean causality - this truth, unfortunately, is available for understanding by very few. Football in our country has degraded not so much because of the limit, but because of the same reason for which normal media were transferred to the country: because there was no free PRIVATE money and private initiative in the country. Accordingly, football clubs have simply turned into a way to pump out and cash out state budget money - and football itself went to the 18th plan, on which it remains.

The question is - how will the abolition of the limit help football? The answer is no, because there will be no more free money in the country from this.

Football will only deteriorate even more - purely aesthetically. ALL the clubs will be flooded with African blacks - that's all the changes. Blacks in Africa are still cheap, and their physical condition is in every way better than that of the rickety children of our snowy expanses. And the children of the African prairies have more purely football practice - there is an eternal summer and there is still nothing to do but play football players all day long.

In a word, it will become here, like in the English Premier League - only the chimney is lower and the smoke is thinner: in the clubs, God forbid, there are two or three Russian players, and all the other foreigners, only not world stars, but blacks from Africa and partly Brazil..."