Two-time Olympic champion and two-time Stanley Cup winner, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Fetisov told KP Sport that the new limit on foreign players in the KHL would be a blow to low-budget clubs.
Previously, each KHL team was allowed to register a maximum of five foreign players for a game. From next season, this number will be reduced to three.
– Another of the rules is the legionnaire limit. Before it was 5, now it will remain 3. Do you think the limit of foreign players is a useful thing?
– Any limit is not good. And the world practice talks about it today. 50% of Europeans play in North America, football is another story in general, there are teams in which there are probably no local guys, all visitors.
In the Soviet Union there were only 12 hockey teams, so the level was very high. We have more than 20 today and I think we don’t have enough players who have the required level for this competition. So I think it’s a blow, especially for clubs with low budgets. Thanks to high-quality and inexpensive legionnaires, they were competitive. I don’t know if it’s 3 or 5, which can possibly matter, but in general it seems to me that even if half of the players in our teams were top level, then that would be enough for the national team, and for anything. It can be seen that there is an underlying reason which is not related to the sporting principle, but to another.
The new KHL season kicks off on September 1 with a game between Moscow CSKA and Kazan Ak Barsom .
KP Sports
Source : MatchTV
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