Brussels, March 9. The Advocate General of the European Union (EU) estimated on Thursday that the UEFA rule which, since the 2008/09 season, has obliged European football clubs to register eight “locally trained” players in their squads n is not “adequate” to “achieve the training objectives of young players”.
In his preliminary opinion of this youngsters, the abogado europeo da la razón parcialmente al futbolista profesional bajo las siglas UL y al Amberes FC, que denounce ante un court belga que las norms de la UEFA contraria a la libre circulation de los trabajadores en la European Union.
According to him, “they restrict both the possibility for a professional football club to sign players who do not meet the local or national rooting requirement and field them in a match, as well as the possibility that a player is signed and fielded by a club with respect to which he cannot invoke this entrenchment”.
The criteria of the UEFA standard indicate that a “locally trained” player is one who has been trained by his club or another from the same national federation for at least three years between fifteen and twenty-one; In addition, of these eight players, four must have been trained at the club in question.
The Advocate General considers that indirect discrimination against players from other Member States can be justified by the “legitimate” objective of “achieving the objective of training and recruiting young players”.
The European lawyer sees justification, on the one hand, for the requirement of a certain number of local players, but underlines that “he does not understand the reason for extending the definition” to local players trained in other clubs from the same country.
One of the lawyer’s arguments recalls, for example, that if the club belongs to one of the major European leagues and can “buy” up to half of the players to meet this requirement, “the club’s objective is training young players”.
“The disputed provisions are not consistent and, therefore, are not sufficient to achieve the training objectives of young players: locally trained players must not include players from clubs other than the club in question,” he said. -he declares.
The opinion of the Advocate General of the EU is not binding, even if the Court of Justice of the European Union, which must deliver the final judgment at a later date, follows the criteria of its lawyers in approximately 80% of cases. EFE
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