I’ve already talked about what I think the future looks like for Danish volleyball as far as foreign players goes. Since I came in 2002, the number has risen exponentially, with more coming each year. And if that trend doesn’t continue, I’ll be surprised. So, what are some of the necessary rules to make the league attractive for foreigners but still manageable for the clubs and players from inside the country?
I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is if there should be limits on the amount of foreigners per team. In almost every other league in Europe there is some variation on how many foreign players a team is allowed. Generally, this is a good rule, allow too many foreigners and you end up with no development for younger Danish players, teams with more money can buy more players and the teams become detached from the community in which they are based. Everyone wants to root for their home team and the local element is important in a smaller sport like volleyball.
I think a nice number here is two. Possibly three but definitely no more. In Japan, the teams are only allowed one foreign player but there is also a larger pool of Japanese players to choose from. I think two is good, not only for the team but for the players as well. Living in a new country can be difficult, having someone else who is experiencing it with you can make a huge difference.
But generally, drawing a limit on the amount of foreigners is an important step that will need to be taken at some point.
Most importantly though, and this is why I wanted to write this today, is that there needs to be some kind of deadline setup, after which, clubs will not be able to bring in new players. I’m not sure what the rule is for players changing clubs, I think they have to sit out for three months before they are allowed to play for their new club, but the ability for clubs to bring in new players at any point in the season needs to be addressed.
As the system is now, a club can do just enough to make it into the slutspil (not as difficult a task as it should be) and then they can go out looking for new talent to bring to their team. It is also possible that a team could make the playoffs and then decide they need to strengthen a certain position by bringing in a new player. We saw this last year when Axel Jacobsen came to SK Aarhus after not playing for most of the year, Soren Hansen got hurt and Axel finished the season for them, playing in the semi-finals and finals. What is to stop an ambitious club from offering a foreign player a nice chunk of money to come and play in Denmark for one month for the playoffs? And there are plenty of volleyball players out there to find, believe me.
Without any kind of deadline there is no actual reason to play a full season. The teams with the best connections and the best economic situations will always end up being the most competitive at the end of the year. Teams that play together over a whole season will essentially be punished for working so hard to get the most out of their players. If teams are allowed to supplement their rosters at any point in the season there will never be any incentive for some teams to work hard at becoming the best they can be.
As I named before, it happened last year with Axel. It happened the year before when Lucas Snider came to play libero and it happened the year before that when Nathan Bennett came into the league. It also happened twice with Søren Hansen in the last few years. Not surprisingly all of these players ended up playing in the finals for their respective teams. They all represented strong additions to the teams that they joined, in each case they were probably the difference between those teams losing in the semi-finals and winning a gold or silver medal.
I’m not advocating a system where teams do not have the ability to make changes to their rosters if it is necessary, but I do think there needs to be a deadline, and it needs to be somewhere in the first months of the season. I would say sometime around the first of November would be a good date. It’s enough time to be able to find out what your team needs but not long enough that you can just hire a player for a short period.
Actually, as I write this, I’ve started thinking about how many times it has happened over the last few seasons and how much impact it has had on the league. I’m surprised that more people haven’t been talking publicly about it because it has obviously affected the end of the year results. I understand that foreigners haven’t been here for a long time and there aren’t a lot of rules in place to govern them; but, it is important that those rules come into place soon. Otherwise, it is going to continue to be too easy for certain teams to spend a little money and get big returns at the end of the year.
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11 comments:
I totally agree that there should be a limit to the number of foreigners per team. I don't think that Denmark is at the point where they can afford to set that limit as low as 2 already. The league isn't strong enough to put the limit that low. I think 3 is more reasonable right now. Look at the top teams... it looks as though teams need a minimum of 2 foreigners to compete at the top level. We have 2 and thought about bringing another because we only had one middle blocker at practice for a long time. Marienlyst has 3 I think,(is that right?). Aarhus has 4 i think. HIK and Gentofte only have 1?? I think an influx of foreign players to 'fill up' the bottom 3-4 teams would be a good thing for the league. If each team picked up 3 foreigners I think the competition throughout the league would be quite a bit more intense. I'm just rambling now...too much wine with dinner at jacobs.
ciao!
Yeah, we've got three if you still count my old self in the equation...
I agree though, three is fine, but when you start getting more than that I think it is over the line. Eventually I think two will be the number if everything continues developing the way it has in the last few years.
Jeg er helt enig i at der bør fastlægges nogle regler for antal af udlændinge på danske hold. En sådan regel kunne jo meget vel træde i kraft i forbindelse med en ny turneringsstruktur. Eventuelt kunne man ligesom i fodbold lave et "vindue" for spillertilgang.
I forbindelse med et sådan regelsæt kunne man måske også forestille sig en regel der sagde at udenlandske spillere, for at være spilleberettiget i Danmark, var forpligtigede til at stå for noget ungdomstræning i et eller andet bestemt antal timer. Det behøves ikke nødvendigvis at være som fast træner for et hold, og heller ikke nødvendigvis særlig mange timer. Men jeg tror at det kunne være inspirerende, både for ungdomsspillerne og for danske trænere, at se hvordan man laver ungdomstræning i andre lande. Det kunne f.eks være noget man kunne gøre brug af i forbindelse med talentcentertræning eller lignende.
Og tak for en super blog og for de rigtig gode debatoplæg!
Oh yeah, Tommy. I didn't include him because he's not a good volleyball player... :)
The two windows would be fine with me as well, but that second window should really only be used to fill holes left by injury. After two months of the regular season a team really should know what they need as far as their team goes. It shouldn't really take that long to figure it out. I just mean, with the grundspil the way it is right now, a lot of teams wouldn't need any foreign players to make it into the slutspil. Once they got there then they could go out and hire several players, only having to pay them for half of the year. It's a cheap way to do things and some clubs might try to cheat the system in that way. If you know what I mean..........
To Roslyng,
I appreciate the comments and the ideas that you suggest, but on this subject I have to disagree. Not because I think the idea is bad, but more because I personally would not like to do it. I DO think that kids volley is great, and that the more youth training there is the better, but requiring a foreing player to do a certain amount of youth work is a bit over the line. Some people just aren't made to coach/train, especially with kids. I put myself in this category, I don't like coaching, and I can imagine trying to coach kids without much knowledge of the language would be even harder than trying to coach older people. So, if you take me as an example, it would have been a mistake to make me train youths because no one would have gotten anything out of it.
On the other hand, it is common that clubs negotiate with their foreign players to coach one of the teams in the club. A lot of players have it in their contract that they should coach a certain amount of hours. I don't have a problem with this as long as the player has the right to decide whether or not they want to go along with it. But when you start requiring things like that you run the risk of people not being happy doing what they are doing. In my mind, an uninspired youth coach is worse than no coach at all.
I am not totally sure but i actualy think that we just implementet a system for registering players (not the licens) for this season.
The idea is excactly as stated here that teams shouldnt be able to buy 3 players after loosing semifinal 1 in order to get the championship.
but again im not certain, but ill look it up in the coming days.
As for the number of foreign players im kinda indifferent.
All teams cant just get a few foreigners due to the economy.
But on the other side foreigners are currently not taking spots for young talents because the sad truth is that the amount of youth talents can be counted on one hand.
I wouldnt want a Austrian League though, with 100% foreigners.
SK Århus has a zillion foreigners on the male team, but it costs them identity as a consistent team because they change the players so much so it will be impossible in the long run to keep a fanbase etc.
As in other discussions i can only say that i still beleive that everyone with energy should use it on working with youth teams. All in all it doesnt matter how many teams are in the elite, how many foreigners, how the judges rule and what else.
The only really important thing is to get more talent and lots more players.
hep
/William
/William
I think that they should definitely set a deadline for signing new players in the first half of season. I also think that teams should be able to apply to the federation or a panel of some sort to sign a new player in the second half. In these cases only teams that can show that they need another player because injuries or other unforseen circumstances have arisen would be given the green light.
I agree with Jordan that foreigners should definitly not be forced to coach youth programs. It is in my contract that I have to coach a team and I am fine with that. I'm not a great coach but I dont mind coming in and showing them what I know. Its a little frustrating because my team is super lazy and they keep telling me I need to be tougher on them. I have a friend who had to coach last year in Sweden as well as play and he absolutely hated it. Sometimes the language barrier is too much, and noone gets anything out of it. Aaron and I have also been coaching kids volley once a week as well as coaching two other teams. This kids volley has really been a waste of time in my opinion with respect to developing volleyball. This kids have a good time because we are tall and can lift them up. Other than that they get zero instruction out of it because we do not speak any danish and they do not speak any english. It ends up being an hour of baby-sitting.
My idea was not to force players to coach or train youthteams. I'm just looking for a way to develop the knowlodge about youthtraining-methods in DK and I think of foreign players as a great, but at the moment unexploited, source in that matter.
When making new rules like a deadline, it's just important to be aware of other possible implications.
If a team has only one setter or libero, for example, and that player gets injured, should the team not be allowed to find a replacement?
I think maybe the idea of transfer deadlines works better with a more professional league than what we have now (or does the deadline only apply to foreign players?). As it is right now, every team can't be expected to have a big squad to choose from. Look at DHG... Should they not be able to bring in a new player if a new one turns up now, for example?
If we make a rule of a maximum of three foreign players, I think that should be enough to ensure that teams can't just hire enough stars late in the season to win the championship.
As you probably know, we already have some rules to make sure that players can't move from one team to another (without being banned for at least a month).
I think that the rule should only apply to players coming from outside the club. I think that a club should be able to promote a player from a lower ranking team in the club at any time.
Having a transfer deadline is a very good idea, I think. It should also encourage elite clubs to invest a bit to get a deeper bench, and not just think about the starting six on the first team.
Go with the deadline early in the season. Then if teams run into a ton of injuries or something after the deadline, they can appeal to the federation to be aloud to pick a player up. But I agree with Chad, Elite teams should have more than 8 people on the team. DHG was mentioned before as a team with not many players and look how their squad is doing this season.
Hey Hove,
YEP YEP YEP. I agree 100 % The Danish League does need some structure in this regard. But dont count out the fact that it is a good league for foreign players to get their foot in the door for the bigger european leagues. And like Kinger said having more foreign players on the weaker teams would be better for the competition. I remember when I played I was a left side player agains some BRUTAL team! Anyway good to see this site. PEACE!
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