“A ban on funding foreign players will kill our football and prevent the development of local players”

The author of the Telegram channel “Grey Cardinal” analyzed the consequences of the recently announced ban on funding foreign players from the budget, reports a KazFootball.kz correspondent.

“Recently, the minds of the football community in Kazakhstan have been agitated by the upcoming ban on funding foreign players from the budget. So far the wording is quite vague, there are no specifics, but it is already clear that the people’s representatives want, in this way, supposedly to “show concern” for local athletes. In principle, we understand what is driving the “reform itch” of the deputies, and we immediately reject any attempts to present the ban as a manifestation of solidarity with the initiative of the Head of State K.K. Tokaeva.

The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, speaking at the ceremony honoring the Olympians, first of all had in mind the naturalization of athletes for the national teams of Kazakhstan. When huge amounts of money are spent on a newly minted Kazakh citizen, and then he, having eaten and drunk it, leaves for his home, putting our turquoise passport on the shelf.

Football is a special sport, a separate subculture, it cannot be compared with judo, taekwondo or volleyball. Legionnaires play throughout the civilized world, even in clubs that are famous for their academies. Take any serious league in the world, and you will understand everything.

What are the disadvantages of such a solution?

Strong clubs will become even stronger, weak clubs even weaker. Clubs such as “Aktobe”, “Astana”, “Ordabasy” will still find funds for foreign players at the expense of sponsors, but regions where there are no subsoil users will greatly lose in quality.

The KPL will definitely sag. Things like commercialization, profit for clubs, selling players abroad can be forgotten for many years. Since our league will become unwatchable (it already has problems with this. Hello QFL broadcasts!)

The ultimate dream for Kazakh clubs will be reaching the second qualifying round of European competition. You can forget about such a concept as a group of the Conference League, Europa League and even more so the Champions League for many years

We will lose a fan. According to preliminary estimates, more than half of the current number of fans will simply stop visiting our arenas, as they will not receive entertainment.

Lack of spectator interest will kill the development of our football. After all, the construction of new arenas in Aktobe, Shymkent, Semey and other cities became possible only thanks to popular interest. As soon as it subsides, no one will need these stadiums.

The Kazakhstan national team will also suffer. In the absence of strong foreign players who still contribute to the development of local players, our main team will lose quality. Sooner or later we will come to the point where our football will pass into private hands, then this issue will disappear on its own. But now this decision will have catastrophic consequences.

And lastly, football clubs will still try to circumvent this ban and are confident that they will find an acceptable way. Then why reinvent the wheel and come up with new rules?

In our opinion, the ban on funding foreign players alone will kill our football and will not allow local players to develop. Not tomorrow, not in 10 years. In general, one gets the feeling that sometimes when making a decision, people’s representatives act in haste and without fully understanding the subject. The desire to please or be on trend sometimes leads to destructive consequences.”writes the source.

Telegram channel “Grey Cardinal”