Blatter and player quotas. Reality bites in Spain.

You have to hand it to Sepp Blatter. Like CJ in the old BBC comedy: "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" he "didn't get where he is today" by being anything but a canny politician or without knowing how to handle the world's press. Call me a cynic - many have - but I suspect that there is more than coincidence in the timing of his recent statements insisting on more restrictions on foreign players in domestic leagues. After all, little more than 24 hours later came an announcement from the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) that there the reverse is in fact happening. In future players from no less than 78 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific will no longer be subject to restriction under this quota. This decision is based on the Cotonou Agreement, signed with these so called ACP countries back in 2000. The agreement came into force in April 2003.

It's perhaps some kind of tribute to Blatter's skills that his statements, which appear to be based on little more than wishful thinking and personal opinion and are contrary to all known EU legal precedent, get far greater coverage from the world's press than the "real events" in Spain. The BBC, for example, do cover the Spanish decision but in the relative backwater of it's African sports section alongside news that Zesco United have claimed the Zambian title. Blatter got front page billing on it's main sports page.

A quick look at the court decisions that have led to the decision of the RFEF provide proof that the wheels of justice really do grind incredibly slowly. It was as long ago as February 2000 that the French appeal court ruled in favour of a Polish basketball player called Lilia Malaja, when she claimed that rules preventing her from signing for French club Strasbourg were contrary to the terms of an association agreement between the EU and Poland. Later the same year a Spanish tribunal accepted that Valery Karpin should be classed as an EU citizen by Celta Vigo and thus not a "foreign player" when it came to the Spanish league's quota system. This ruling was based on a similar agreement between the EU and Russia.

The Malaja decision made it to EU level - as opposed to purely national level and thus theoretically open to the question of different interpretations elsewhere - in 2003. This was when the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of Slovakian handball player Maros Kolpak when he challenged the Deutscher Handballbund (German national handball federation) about similar quota restrictions. The Karpin ruling (I'll explain the difference such as it is - or at least such as it is fathomable to a layman like me - in a minute) took until January 2005 to make it to EU level. When it did it was due to another case against the Spanish Federation, again by a Russian player, this time Igor Simutenkov - who was playing for Tenerife at the time. Or at least he had been when his application for a new licence had first been rejected four years earlier. Wheels, grinding, slow...

So what was the difference between the Kolpak case and the Simutenkov case. And why has it taken another 33 months for the same ruling to be applied to the 78 countries that are parties to the Cotonou Agreement. Well I'm no lawyer - and someone who is may be able to firmly slap me into place - but it seems to be purely to do with the fact that different countries have "different sorts of agreements" with the EU.

Thus Slovakia, before becoming full EU members obviously, had a "Stabilisation and Association Agreement". As far as I can tell the EU currently has exactly the same type of agreements with Croatia, Macedonia and Albania. The key paragraph of said agreements reads thus:

"Subject to the conditions and modalities applicable in each Member State: — treatment accorded to workers who are Croatian nationals and who are legally employed in the territory of a Member State shall be free of any discrimination based on nationality, as regards working conditions, remuneration or
dismissal, compared to its own nationals"

Russia on the other hand has an "Agreement on partnership and cooperation" and it says:

"Subject to the laws, conditions and procedures applicable in each Member State, the Community and its Member States shall ensure that the treatment accorded to Russian nationals, legally employed in the territory of a Member State shall be free from any discrimination based on nationality, as regards working conditions, remuneration or dismissal, as compared to its own nationals"

And the "Cotonou Agreement" - which the RFEF have sensibly acted on rather than going to court again says:

"The treatment accorded by each Member State to workers of ACP countries legally employed in its territory, shall be free from any discrimination based on nationality, as regards working conditions, remuneration and dismissal, relative to its own nationals."