4 factors make the increase of foreigners and residents in “Durina” useless

Athletes and technical analysts identified four main factors, which they said make the increase in the number of foreign players and residents in the ADNOC Professional League technically useless, but rather negatively affect the development of Emirati football, and that this large number of foreigners and residents did not contribute to the development of the technical level of football in the Emirates in general, and periodicals in particular.

In an interview with “Emirates Today”, they said: “This is reflected negatively on the level of the national teams as well.” They stressed that the four factors are: the weak level of the local league technically, and the decline in its Asian classification in recent years, in addition to the modest results of UAE clubs in the Asian championships. , especially the Champions League, as in the current version, one team, Shabab Al-Ahly, succeeded in reaching the final price, and will face Al-Hilal Saudi Arabia on the 20th of this year, while the Sharjah, Al-Jazeera and Bani Yas teams bid farewell early, in addition to the decline in the results of the teams in all external participations, including the first team that He failed to qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, and he finally finished in his group in the 25th Gulf Cup, which was recently held in Iraq. And since the UAE League ranked first in Asia in the 2017 rankings, it began to decline after that until it became ninth in the 2022 rankings, according to AFC data. The athletes called for reducing the number of foreigners to only three players instead of the current five, as one of the measures to restore Emirati football to a situation that satisfies everyone. The Professional League had decided to increase the number of foreigners from four to five, and the same number of residents, starting from the current season.

Great financial cost

The former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kalba Union, Issa Al-Dhabahi, called for a quick decision to reduce the number of foreign players to only three. He added, “In my estimation, the continuation of the current situation will delay the development of Emirates football.” He said, “Attracting this large number of foreigners and residents costs clubs a lot of money. For example, when a club brings a resident player from outside the country, he is forced to bring his family with him, especially his parents, which increases the financial cost borne by the club.”

In turn, a member of the executive office of the association and former head of the technical committee, Muhammad Saeed Al-Nuaimi, said, “Increasing the number of foreigners in the league is a requirement of the Asian Football Confederation to have five foreign players in each team in the professional league,” noting that it should be the goal of competing clubs. On Asian tournaments, not just participating. He added, “The aim of the decision to participate in the participation of the children of citizens, citizens and residents of the state is to create a football infrastructure to benefit from it, given that the affiliation of these people to the state differs from that of the player who was brought from abroad and made a residence for him.” Al-Nuaimi continued: “It is better for clubs and the Football Association to search for talents in schools and run patrols for them, as well as organize tournaments in (Al-Furjan), to discover talents among them, instead of bringing 88 players residing from outside the country and spending on them without benefiting from them, as this is a waste.” for money.”

System reform

Former member of the Competitions Committee of the Football Association, Khaled Awad, stressed that the presence of foreign players and residents in the league did not reflect positively, whether on the technical level, or even the behavior of a number of players, besides that the competition itself did not benefit, which is shown by the Asian classification, besides Its impact on the national teams. He said, “The matter was reflected positively in the interest of foreign players, residents and their agents, by benefiting them financially more than the interest of national players or Emirates football in general.” He added, “In the recent period, we have not seen distinguished foreign players and residents in all the clubs in the local league, with the exception of a very small number that does not exceed the fingers of one hand. They have been taken advantage of.” He said, “Fixing the defect lies in the process of comprehensive reform of the entire system that runs the game, starting with the clubs.”

The 4 factors

1- Weakness of the technical level of the local league.

2- The league’s ranking decreased at the Asian level.

3- The modest results of clubs in continental competitions.

4- Review the results of the teams in all external participations.

In the current season of the AFC Champions League, only one club out of four clubs reached the second round, which is Shabab Al-Ahly.