The rate should move to 70 the following season

While the crisis presents the regulation to the taste of the day, professional sport attempts to limit the liberalisation of the market of the current players since the famous Bosman judgment. Here and there, in Europe and France, measures protecting locally trained athletes are. This forced march towards the establishment of a sport "specificity" cache a veiled restriction of the number of foreigners from the European Union (or of a country, read below), and a return of national quotas in different Championships Let the Commission in Brussels to make what might be akin to a derogation from the principle of free movement of workers The subject is delicate and the border is fine between the simple protection of training courses and some form of protectionism.

April 2, the Steering Committee of the national rugby league (NRL) has decided to impose a minimum of 50 of "from players of the French training courses" for professional clubs (JIFF) as of 2010-2011. The rate should move to 70 the following season. A decision openly motivated by the desire to reduce the number of foreigners present in the Championship, which is 40 in the Top 14. "We have even seen a Toulon-Brive played with only two French field", said Arnaud Dagorne, the Director General of the NRL. To move to the Act of an assumed form of nationalism, the leaders of the French rugby rely on the decision of the Commission in Brussels in may, 2008 authorizing the UEFA, the European Confederation of football, to establish his own "home grown players" form of locally trained players.

Local training

Rule, included in the European licence allowing clubs access to the Champions League and UEFA Cup, imposes the progressive presence of 8 players of this type on 25 registrants in the competition. Is considered locally trained player any football between fifteen and twenty one years who will have spent at least three years in a club of the country concerned. "It is not criterion of nationality, therefore not discrimination", said William Gaillard, Advisor of Michel Platini, President of UEFA, to justify the approval of Brussels. For rugby, from a French training industry player must either have been licensed for five consecutive seasons before the age of twenty-one years to the French Federation, or have been formed for three years at least in an approved centre and have between sixteen and twenty-one years.

Between football and oval-shaped ball, approaches are similar, but their application is different. "Eight players on 25, this is one-third of the workforce", has the Marseille lawyer Michel Pautot (read below). "50 or 70 it is perhaps too." "It that the device is proportional to the objective that it says search, namely the protection of the training, to be acceptable in the State of the European right", says his side Vincent Chaudel, responsible of the Sports Department of Ineum Consulting. View authorized since Ineum worked to UEFA on the acceptance of the reform by Brussels. For him, rugby league is clearly a risk. Pierre-Yves Revol, the new President of the French professional rugby, the acknowledged himself: "Brussels to lead to a revision of the ratios."

That they settled at 30 or 70, the fragility of all these measures remain. "If, in fact, it turns out that foreign players protected by the European Union can only be committed by the clubs because these quotas related to training, it will also pose problem." "It is sufficient that one of them had to go to trial", says Michel Pautot.

Players rather against

To understand, remember that the Bosman ruling, which applies to nationals of the Member countries of the Union, has been extended to Europe from the East, the former USSR, the Turkey, the Maghreb and throughout the ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) area by another justice decision, the case Malaja (read below). Schematically, half of the world or almost cannot be discriminated against in Europe for employment.

The threat of another Bosman case is more likely that the players themselves are not favourable to the new rules. Philippe Piat, co-Chair of the National Union of professional footballers (UNFP) and representative for Europe of the Fifpro, the World Union of footballers, is very clear on the subject. "In terms of the right to work, it is illegal," he says. "The system will not certainly maintained because the Commission did not know that there is a quota of 8-25." "We are ready to attack," he added. "We are for a limitation of the number of contracts for players with 20 or 22, to which the"home grown players"could be." The historical trade unionist of the French football addresses in fact for the "6 5" (six national players plus five foreigners) defended by Fifa, the International Federation of football. But, on this subject, William Gaillard is radical: "return to a system of quotas based purely on the grounds of nationality is impossible to accept for Brussels." He must defend the 'sport specificity"recognized in Lisbon, but not consider that sport can be above the law. ""In any case, summarized Michel Pautot, the Commission grants derogations, such as allowing the UEFA to sell his rights of centrally, to the blow by blow after study. "A way to recognize that the debate remains open.