MOSCOW, April 11 (R-Sport) - Russian President Vladimir Putin called Friday for his government to draw up rules to control how Russian teams sign foreign football and hockey players, in a sign that limits in both sports could be tightened.
Russian top-tier football clubs may field no more than seven foreigners at a time, while Russian clubs in the KHL hockey league can have only five foreigners on the roster.
Those limits are designed to protect local talent and ensure game time for young Russian players with the aim of national teams succeeding at top global competitions. The quotas have been criticized, however, for allowing Russian players to demand inflated wages.
Now control of foreign player limits could be taken out of the sports federations’ hands.
A formal order from Putin issued Friday called for the government to “establish a procedure for hiring foreign athletes, coaches and other specialists in winter and summer team sports (hockey, football)” and to “assign responsibility for compliance with this procedure to the federal executive body in the field of fitness and sports,” an apparent reference to the powerful Sports Ministry.
The order was issued less than a month after Putin slammed the practice of hiring foreigners at the expense of promising Russian youngsters.
"Today's practice of hiring at clubs does not take into account the interests of the national teams," Putin said, referring to team sports including football and hockey, according to a Kremlin statement.
“We need to build our work in such a way as to raise the professional level of our national players and coaches, to search for gifted and bright athletes and create from them a genuine, flowing, confident team. Only in that way can we count on victory," Putin added.
In a separate move earlier this month, a group of influential former Russian footballers put forward a plan to restrict the number of foreigners allowed in the game to six per club by the year 2017.
There is currently no limit on how many foreigners a football club is allowed to have in the squad, only the number who can be on the pitch at any one time.
