Ferwafa to start talks over revising foreign players’ quota rule soon

Football governing body (Rwanda FA) is set to open talks over revising the 3-3 rule regarding the restriction of foreign players in the topflight league, following pleas from a series of clubs to increase foreign players in the league. A number of clubs have been petitioning Ferwafa over a possibility of fielding five players in the starting lineup in their league fixtures but the federation insisted on maintaining its current 3-3 quota rule for foreign players. Under the rule, clubs are only allowed to field three foreign players in their starting line-ups, and three on the bench, prompting teams to raise concerns that the rule falls short when it comes to giving competition to home players – which, in turn, sinks the level of the league. Ferwafa new president Olivier Nizeyimana was among prominent figures that were leading the petition for a revision about the current foreign players’ quota rule when he was the president of Mukura VS, alongside Kiyovu SV and Gasogi United bosses Juvenal Mvukiyehe and Kakooza Nkuriza Charles respectively as well as Rayon Sports. During a general assembly held in October last year, Ferwafa was reportedly open to letting clubs increase foreign players in the starting line-up from three to five so as to give enough competition to Rwandan players ‘in the best interest’ of the national team. However, clubs were in the end disappointed to see the football governing body reject their appeal and chose to maintain the 3-3 rule after the motion failed to garner enough votes to pass. But, shortly after being elected to take Ferwafa office during the next four years, Nizeyimana said revising the current rule is among urgent matters that his leadership wants to discuss with top flight clubs. “The case of the foreign players’ quota rule is one of the issues that we received from a number of clubs during our election campaign, we want to bring it on table during the next general assembly and take a decision before the new season kicks off,” Nizeyimana said. League champions APR FC, Police FC and Marine FC are the only three clubs that obviously feel comfortable with the current 3-3 rule after they decided to adopt the ‘homegrown players only’ policy over the past eight years as a way to give local players a platform to shine. However, despite its domestic dominance, APR FC have not performed well in continental competitions, following their early elimination from the CAF Champions league, whose final takes place on July 17 between holders Al Ahly and South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs. The army side couldn’t progress to another round of the competition after they were knocked out by Kenyan side Gor Mahia in the first round and their failure is pushing the club’s hierarchy to reconsider using foreign players, but only in the continental competitions.