On January 10, Adilet Barmenkulov, the President of the Kazakhstan Football Federation, spoke about changes regarding the acquisition of foreign players by Kazakh football clubs, announcing the decision to abolish the limit on foreigners, QazMonitor reports.
Barmenkulov noted that over the past fifteen years, the Federation has conducted various experiments with limits on foreign players with mixed results. The decision to abolish the limit of not more than seven foreign players on the field was under consideration for about two years.
According to the official, the domestic football scene will now allow up to twelve foreign players on the field, while the remaining thirteen should be trainees from Kazakhstan. The federation hopes that this will serve the following purposes:
Fostering competition among football clubs;
Creation of a market wage system that will eliminate artificially inflated wages;
Improving the skill level of Kazakh players and increasing interest in football among fans and investors, eventually leading to a shift away from public funding to private funding;
Incentivizing clubs to invest more in youth.
Additionally, Barmenkulov added that the Federation will move away from the naturalization practice in the national football team.
