6+5 = chaos

"Look guys, I know it's stupid, but once you vote for my 6+5 rule, we can get back to forcing female footballers to wear skimpy outfits. So... all in favour?"

- Sepp Blatter, behind closed doors at the FIFA meeting.

This isn't a rule to improve local players, improve international football, nor to improve England's chances to make the next World Cup. It's a rule to change domestic football so that a domestic league reflects the footballing culture of a particular country.

We take it for granted that the French, English, Spanish, Italians and Germans all play football slightly differently. FIFA wants to preserve that. Competitions like the Champions League should be about discernibly different footballing cultures facing off against each other. We still get a bit of that now, but with the increasingly multicultural nature of the big, big teams, all the big clubs are starting to play like each other. It takes away from the spectacle.

I'm not advocating for the rule; I think it's a restraint of trade and it should be thrown out. However, I do understand the sentiments behind the rule, and I do believe that the differences in national footballing styles should be preserved. It's just that a quota system is a heavy-handed way of doing it.

It's depressing that the first reaction is always to ban. It's the "they took our jobs" mentality. People don't learn from history. Tariffs don't work. Tariffs hinder an industry by making it ineffective and uncompetitive. You get complacent. You take things for granted. And you don't go through the necessary pain in order to reform. There are better ways of encouraging more English players to play in the Premier League, but it'll take more brainpower than FIFA are willing to expend.

I'd like to see the FA try some sort of junior subsidising system, whereby each club is given a certain stipend for how many juniors sign professional contracts. It won't influence the way Premier League clubs recruit players, but it could be the difference for lower Championship and League 1 and 2 clubs.

It'll encourage lower level clubs to invest in domestic youth; give those clubs guaranteed income; and blood youngsters in lower level competitions before they're ready for a move to the big clubs. This would, in effective, have similar results as a quota, but without the stigma of a tariff.

It's just something I thought of now, and I'm sure there are much better ideas out there - you just need to think about more than the stupidly obvious.