Whats everyones thoughts on the 3+1 rule? Would you change it to add more asian players? More foreign players? What do you think would be the advantages and disadvantages to Asian and Australian football by changing it?

IMO, adding more foreign players would severely disadvantage Australian clubs from ACL as long as we have the salary cap and stringent rules on how many marquee players we can have. OTOH, it would increase the overall quality of the competition which could make it more prestigious and get more people tuned in.

Adding more Asian players could go one or two ways as well. Chinese, Japanese, Qatari, Emirate, Saudi etc.. clubs could price beat many a-league clubs for players because of the salary cap like they already do. Overall reducing the quality of the A-League and it could hinder some Aussie players growth playing in a lesser league.

Or, it could promote recruitment of players from developing football countries (Thailand, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Indonesia etc..) where most of their National team players play in their home country because most clubs use their +1 on a player from a more proven Asian footballing nation, presumably because its a safer bet.

Right now though i think the 3+1 is keeping asian football down from reaching its potential. Wealthy clubs are reduced to 4 foreigners, compared to european clubs where they can have about 17 IIRC. Players in developing football nations are pretty much stuck playing in their domestic leagues as the opportunities to most to a better league are limited. We all watched the Asian cup, I'm sure many Iraqi or Jordanian players could easily play at Champions league quality clubs but the opportunities aren't there.

With all that said, I reckon 4+4 would be a good balance

Edited by tbitm: 13/2/2015 08:10:54 PM

It's unrealistic and holds back the strength of Asian Football. AFC should follow UEFA and instead encourage clubs develop their own players from youth rather than simplistically restrict foreigners.

3 + 1 is A nonsense.

There are enough unnecessary recruiting restrictions already in place without insisting where one of the overseas players is recruited from.

Thankfully FFA, when announcing that 5 visa players are permitted for at LEAST the next two seasons, also indicated that a player having to be recruited from Asia in that number was not on the agenda.

I seriously think we have a strength as a domestic competition that these other Asian Leagues don't have, and that is that we're English speaking, predominantly white and have strong ties with England.

I just think we'd have more success as a Football League than these other Asian regions would - as a product , as a TV spectacle. Just in whole a better League in the end. We saw that with our first Asian Cup, there was clearly a 'feel' about it that smelt like Europe.

Not sure what Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka and India have to say about this?