Doing a great deal of harm

Feb 5 2010 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

He said: “The whole thing has a downside.

“It creates a system where we are paying people to do nothing. We have to have a squad, but in the past you did not really have to have that.

“It stops people from playing and it detracts from the quality in the Championship. That is my opinion of it.

“If it went back to the old way we would all be a lot, lot happier and the clubs would be a lot wealthier and better off because they would not have to carry the squads that they do.

“My squad is 24 or 25 players – we can only pick 11. You can imagine what the others are like if they have anything about them.

“They are not happy. In my day the squads were 15 or 16, and if you had a major problem you could go and get a player in February or November or whenever you needed one.” Although Fifa insist the regulations comply with European Union trade legislation there is a precedent for a legal challenge in the case of obscure Belgian footballer Jean-Luc Bosman.

Thanks to his case in 1995 the European Court of Justice ruled players were free to move at the end of their contracts – a profound change that shifted the balance of power in the transfer market.

Bruce can envisage something similar with the transfer window system, which he feels restricts footballers’ opportunities to play.

He added: “If I was a player I would go to the European Union and say it is a restriction of trade. If you are a player and you have missed out on a move in January you are stuck there for six months until you can start again.

“I would not be surprised if there was a player like Bosman who takes this on. If he did do, I think we would all welcome it.

“In the past if you had four or five players injured you would try to loan one or buy one and that makes sense rather than carrying the sort of squads we carry now.

“We all carry huge squads now. In my day we had squads of 15 or 16 with one substitute on match days.

“I am only talking 10 years ago. If someone was seriously injured back then, you tried to sign one from somewhere else.”