On Friday, April 24, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev signed an order to change the maximum number of foreign football players in the Russian Premier League (RPL) team application. In particular, as of next season 2026/2027, the team roster cannot contain more than 12 foreigners, and no more than seven on the field.
He noted that football is currently the absolute leader in the country among sports in terms of the number of participants – more than 3.5 million people.
The state spends 56 billion rubles annually on training football players. At the same time, the total budget of RPL clubs amounts to more than 120 billion rubles. Although 70-80% of this money comes from the state, clubs spend 7.4 billion rubles – 6% – on children’s and youth sports. Degtyarev confirmed that up to 70 percent is spent on the salaries of foreign players.
The minister explained that he decided to change the limits in order to encourage clubs to redistribute their expenses in favor of youth football, search for talent and train more elite athletes among their students, he said. cable-channel.
On April 20, former Spartak Moscow and Russian national team footballer Igor Titov said that his favorite team in the RPL this season is Zenit Saint Petersburg.