Blatter's patter over 6-plus-5 plan during congress hints at change but in reality has no chance

SEPP Blatter has come up with a fair few crackpot ideas since running football world's governing body. Remember how the FIFA president famously championed women footballers wearing shorter skirts? How ironic, then, that his one campaign with which most fair-minded fans agree has no chance of coming to fruition.

Anyone who got up in the early hours of Friday to listen on-line to Blatter's press conference at the end of the FIFA congress in Sydney could have been forgiven for thinking he had finally won his personal crusade to reduce the number of foreign players in European leagues.

In typically triumphalist mood, Blatter re-iterated how his so-called "6-plus-5" proposal had been passed by a massive majority of federations and that the objective of limiting foreign players in each starting line-up was long overdue in order to maintain national identity and promote youth development.

What Blatter had conveniently forgotten was that the 40 of the 203 federations abstained, almost all of them from Europe, and that five voted against. The reason? Big Brother in Brussels. Whatever you think of the role – or lack of it – the European Union should have in running football, the law is the law. Any attempt to introduce quotas based solely on nationality simply won't wash and Blatter knows it.

The key word in the resolution passed in Sydney was "objectives". In other words, most agreed to pursue the concept of quotas but no new rule change was enforced. At heart, 6 plus 5 – or 4 plus 7 which is how it would start in 2010 – is a laudable idea, aiding local talent to flourish and stopping clubs buying in mediocre players from overseas. But in the modern world, it is unworkable and illegal as the EU has stated time after time.

One of Blatter's core beliefs is that a club, whether Real Madrid or a lower-league outfit should have some tangible link with its locality. He intends to challenge the EU by claiming that sport is different from all other trades – its "specificity" as defined by the Treaty of Lisbon – and that law-makers could review matters in the future.

But his chances remain slim. He may well be right in terms of preserving the traditional soul of football but legally he is on his own which is what he was told a week before the Congress by UEFA whose own home-grown system commands far more sympathy in Brussels. This allows clubs to include in a number of players they have developed themselves but, crucially, irrespective of nationality.

"We are in favour of protecting locally trained players but 6 plus 5, or any form of quotas, simply cannot be implemented in Europe because it isn't legal," said UEFA spokesman William Gaillard. "It's not possible to protect national identity 100 per cent in Europe but UEFA's system at least ensures young players have more of a link to their local community. What happened in Sydney was exactly the compromise we agreed with Blatter, in other words to pursue the objectives but within the limit of the law."

Blatter maintains that 6-plus-5 does not break any EU laws since no restrictions are being placed on the number of foreigners who can be signed or who sit on the bench – just the number who start each game. But this view is not shared by leading sports lawyers who predict a spate of Bosman-style court cases if any form of quotas is introduced in Europe. "It makes no difference. Anything based on nationality is simply a non-starter," said one UEFA legal insider.

Blatter plans to meet the European Parliament president on Thursday but expect no more than a friendly handshake, a courteous heart-to-heart and a long Belgian lunch.