The top officials around England’s 2018 World Cup bid have warned FIFA they will not force the Premier League to adopt Sepp Blatter’s ‘6 plus 5’ player quota just to win the right to host the tournament.
Lord Triesman, the Football Association chairman, said the Premier League’s success would not be sacrificed in order to accommodate the FIFA president’s quota plan.
The 2018 bidding process was launched at Wembley Stadium last week, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined by England colleagues David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, along with a host of other influential figures from British sport to kick the bid off.
Blatter is determined to implement a radical ‘6 plus 5’ quota that would restrict Premier League clubs to fielding only five non-Englishmen in their starting line-ups.
There are serious doubts as to whether it would be permitted under European Union law however, but the 2018 World Cup bid team know that Blatter’s influence among the 24-man FIFA executive committee is too strong to ignore.
While Triesman said he hoped the 2018 World Cup bid would not come down to a question of ‘6 plus 5’ quotas and the FIFA politics surrounding them, he said Blatter’s proposals were unworkable.
“We will try to work out whether it can be done legally or not, I don’t see how it can be done in European law,” said Triesman.
“Anybody who tries to change European law will find themselves frustrated in the end. We will take an approach in the interests of English football.”
The Minister for Sport, Gerry Sutcliffe, said the 2018 bid would ‘not do anything that affects the future of the game’.
He said: “We (the Government) are happy to be alongside the Premier League, the Football League and the FA.
“We need to support the future of the game against horse-trading on the bid.”
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