ABSTRACT

I think the European Champions Cup is now bigger than the World Cup. All the best players are in Europe now.

(Sir Alex Ferguson, 2003)

Clubs are able to recruit players from different nationalities in a way that national squads are unable to. Vaeyens et al. (2005) have described some restrictions on the make up of club squads in Belgium, but these are still much less restrictive than eligibility criteria for national sides.