[goldenHuddlestone]

The national team coaches of Sweden, Norway and Denmark warned on Wednesday that the growing number of "ordinary" foreign players in domestic club sides shut out local talent and could damage the game at national level. The coaches said their statement was not aimed at foreign players in general, recognising that many good players had come to the Scandinavian leagues, but at players who were of average talent and did not raise standards in the domestic game. "In the last few years we have seen the number of, at best, ordinary foreign players rising in Scandinavian clubs," Lars Lagerback of Sweden, Aage Hareide of Norway and Morten Olsen of Denmark said.

"If foreign players do not raise sporting levels in the three countries then they just take up places in squads that would otherwise go to domestic talent and this has a negative impact on the development of Scandinavian talent," they said. The note said that in the Swedish premier league the number of foreign players almost doubled between 2002 and 2005 to 21 per cent. Just 10 percent of players in Swedens top league are eligible to play in the national Under-21 side. In Norway, the number of foreign players was 33 percent of the total, but that on average they were only on the pitch 34 percent of the time.

No Danish club had less than 5 foreign players, while Viborg and Aalborg both had as many as 10, the coaches wrote. "The consequences will first hit the national sides in a few years," they added, saying there was a general responsibility to get the trend back to in the right direction. The coaches statement reflects the thinking at both FIFA and UEFA who have been concerned for years about the unrestricted movement of foreign players in the game.

Since the Bosman Ruling of 1995 which ended the restrictions on the numbers of overseas players eligible to play in a team, the face of soccer in Europe has changed totally, with some major teams like Chelsea and Arsenal in England fielding starting lineups without one English player in them. Belgian club Beveren have fielded starting lineups consisiting of 11 players from the Ivory Coast in the past. UEFA are attempting to introduce a "homegrown" rule which stipulates that a number of players, developed by the club from its youth programme, must be included in the match day squad, but under EU law it cannot stipulate the nationality of the young players involved.