Blatter calls for football labour exceptions

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has called on the European Union (EU) to recognise the autonomy of sport when it comes to matters regarding labour laws.

Blatter wants football to be exempt from freedom of movement laws, which would allow sports authorities to limit the number of foreign players allowed to play at clubs.

"Workers in Europe can circulate freely but footballers are not workers," he said. "You cannot consider a footballer like any normal worker because you need 11 to play a match - and they are more artists than workers."

Blatter said he supports the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge, who wrote a letter to state heads of all the EU countries on the subject of sporting exemptions.

The EU recently stated it wanted to impose more regulations on football, something that has angered Blatter.

"Football has never had the courage to go against this practice," he said. "When you have 11 foreigners in a team, this is not good for the development of football, for the education of young players, and there is a financial aspect, too."

Blatter said that he wants to restore "national identity" to clubs and impose a minimum quota of at least six homegrown players per team.

"The idea is to find a way of protecting the national identity of clubs," he said.

"That's why we want to push for the '6+5' principle which has many advantages: players trained at clubs will have the opportunity to play in the first team, the financial interest is obvious as clubs wouldn't have to spend astronomical sums to buy a player and the effect for the national teams is obvious.

"Ideally we would like to put the '6+5' system in place for the 2010-2011 season," said Blatter.