How has the number of foreign players in the RPL changed over 5 years?

Many of the Russ­ian teams are faced with dif­fi­cul­ties when choos­ing a squad for the match, and all because: this year the RFU approved a new lim­it on for­eign play­ers in the RPL.

Most RPL clubs have approx­i­mate­ly the same num­ber of for­eign­ers (11–10) on their ros­ters. Among all, only three clubs dif­fer: “Fakel” (Motspan), “Loko­mo­tiv” (Fas­son) and “Ros­tov” (Moheb­bi). Each of them has one reg­u­lar­ly play­ing for­eign play­er.

Many of the Russ­ian teams are faced with dif­fi­cul­ties when choos­ing a squad for the match, and all because: this year the RFU approved a new lim­it on for­eign play­ers in the RPL. Then the orga­ni­za­tion report­ed on the deci­sions tak­en by the RFU exec­u­tive com­mit­tee on its web­site:

  • Start­ing from the 2022/2023 sea­son. For par­tic­i­pants in the Russ­ian Foot­ball Cham­pi­onship among RPL clubs, it is a manda­to­ry require­ment to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly include no more than 13 for­eign play­ers in the entry list, of which no more than 8 for­eign play­ers can be on the field at the same time in a cham­pi­onship match for one club.

In foot­ball on the field simul­ta­ne­ous­ly There can be 8 for­eign play­ers out of 11 play­ers.

For exam­ple, in vol­ley­ball the ratio is dif­fer­ent — only two out of six can be for­eign­ers.

Over the 12 rounds of the cur­rent cham­pi­onship, only 10 times teams have field­ed the max­i­mum num­ber of for­eign play­ers in the main squad — eight. Zen­it did this most often.

It was in the St. Peters­burg club that almost 60% of the play­ing time is “eat­en up” by legion­naires.

A slight decline in the total num­ber of for­eign play­ers was observed only in the sum­mer of 2022. Then it was not con­nect­ed with the new lim­it at all, but with the out­flow of for­eign­ers.

This sea­son, the share of play­ing time of for­eign foot­ball play­ers has returned to the lev­el of the RPL 2019/20 (36.3%), when no more than 6 for­eign play­ers were released onto the field at a time.

Zenit has accumulated a core of Brazilians

If Spar­tak, CSKA and Loko­mo­tiv active­ly attract­ed foot­ball play­ers from Brazil back in the 2000s, Zen­it became involved only in the 10s. But how!

The first foot­ball play­er from hot Rio de Janeiro in a club from St. Peters­burg — Hulk! He moved in 2012 from Por­to.

Five of Zenit's foreign players are on the list of the highest paid RPL football players

The cur­rent team began to form at Zen­it in 2019 — they arrived in the sum­mer Dou­glas San­tos And Mal­colm.

Pedro became the ninth Brazil­ian to sign a con­tract with Zen­it. Under the terms of the agree­ment, the foot­baller will join the new team upon reach­ing his 18th birth­day, that is, in Feb­ru­ary 2024.

Look­ing at indi­vid­ual clubs oth­er than “Zenith” — stands out here and “Ros­tov” The Blue-White-Blues are mak­ing the most of the ben­e­fits of the new lim­it, which is reflect­ed in the lat­est match­es. The yel­low-blues, on the con­trary, are already accus­tomed to doing with­out for­eign play­ers.

For the entire last cham­pi­onship for the team Vale­ria Karpina Only one legion­naire played — Mace­don­ian David Toshevs­ki.

In the cur­rent cham­pi­onship 4 of the 6 most pop­u­lar Spar­tak play­ers are for­eign­ers.

The highest paid foreign players in the RPL

Most like­ly, the share of play­ing time of for­eign play­ers in the RPL will increase. It is quite pos­si­ble that even dur­ing the cur­rent cham­pi­onship it will reach 40%.

Cur­rent­ly, clubs are find­ing a bal­ance between the with­draw­al of Russ­ian and for­eign play­ers, which con­firms the fact that Russ­ian foot­ballers are not being squeezed yet.

If absolute­ly all clubs always field 8 for­eign play­ers on the field, the share of for­eign play­ers’ play­ing time in the RPL could reach 73%. Cur­rent­ly, this fig­ure is two times low­er.