Athletic Bilbao's policy on players

Athletic Bilbao have a policy of only signing players who were born in the Basque region of Spain. Only exception allowed is if a non-Basque player has came up through the youth ranks of a Basque team.

Real Sociadad are also a Basque team. But have no such signing policy.

Although nothing to do with religion...is this policy not similar to rangers old signing policy which we all know without me going into a description??

There must be an outcry in Spain over this.
Is this not some blatant type of employment discrimination? Why is this allowed? Why don't they modernise and change it?
Why is it never been a major issue? And in this world of woke awareness...why has if not been heavily scrutinised??? It is discrimination. No 2 ways about it

 

How is it discrimination? It's not like rangers who discriminated against a full religion ffs. It's more like a school and catchment area. Nothing wrong with giving local lads a shot.

 

Discrimination or not, I would tend to side with Honda,
Their signing policy will give the club a real identify and encourage any Basques to follow the club so this fact will have a positive impact on the club commercially, my gut feeling if it works then good on them.

 

We discriminated as well…

When we win the big cup in 67… all our players had to come from within a 30 mile radius of Glasgow.

 

It's not the same. These players can be any race or religion. Rangers policy was anti Catholic and anti Irish. Their fans aren't out singing about the death of the people they won't sign.

 

Actually their 'policy' is that the player has to have trained at a Basque club's academy, regardless of exact birthplace, or that they were born and raised in the Basque country. I'm sure I've read that it's not actually written down as a policy within the club, so in theory they could go out and sign whoever they want in the next transfer window, but they choose to stick to players who were trained in Basque region as academy players.

They have had criticism for the policy and some say it is discrimination, but the club frame it as a celebration of local identity. Other criticism includes restricting the talent pool available to them but along with only Barcelona and Real Madrid, they've never been relegated from La Liga. So it does seem to work for them. They invest heavily into their youth academy as a result of it, and players tend to stay longer. They also don't have to spend on transfer fees as frequently as other clubs which helps with financial management. Although you could also argue that when they do sign Basque players from other clubs, they could be forced to pay an inflated fee because the selling club knows they only sign Basque players.

There are plenty of non-Basques who have been part of their non playing staff. They had an Argentinian manager in recent years, and they've also had about half a dozen English managers in their history.

Real Sociedad had the same policy until 1989 when they signed John Aldridge. Now they buy globally but still promote a strong Basque identity and aim to have a Basque core in their team.

 

Yes as I said.....it has nothing to do with religion.

But it is an official policy restricting who can be employed as a player. This has to be in some way illegal in employment law.

As for the last part of your post.....the Basque region has militant separatists who have for years attacked Spain pushing for a Basque independent state. They have Basque rebel songs etc much the same as we have Irish rebel songs

 

The fact that this seems weird to people says a lot about what is wrong with modern football TBH.

 

I know they have separatists, but it's not bigoted, it's a political movement for sovereignty.

If they refused to sign non-playing staff due to birth then that definitely becomes an issue and would likely be against employment law. But players don't apply for jobs and go through an interview process. They will take non-Basque youth players who come for trials with them, which is probably the closest thing they have done.

I don't know about Spanish law, but in the UK under EA 2010 you can have employment policies to favour under represented groups. So there may be no issue to what they are doing.

 

Not about Bilbao but never understood how a catholic could sign for the Huns and listen to the utter hatred from their fans.

 

Wish we were more like Athletic Bilbao and less like a lifeless multinational corporation / EPL plastic club wannabe.

Athletic do not discriminate on the basis of skin colour, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation, etc. They just support their local community. Think of it like the buy local movement. Plenty of people opt for locally produced goods and services rather than those produced by big multinationals. Nothing wrong with that.

 

It’s nothing like discrimination. Who are they discriminating against exactly? It’s not like people are applying for jobs there and being rejected due to not being from there. Do football teams discriminate against folk in wheelchairs, women, 60 year olds?

They are a club with values that are missing in modern day football, a club with a strong affinity to us, you saw it at the Hun game and Jamsey’s Testimonial.

Look at the success they are having too. It’s excellent to see.

 

Their policy clearly discriminates against players born outside of the Basque region or who have came through a youth system outwith the Basque region.....as that is the only 2 criteria of player that they are allowed to sign
I'm not criticising them even if it is discrimination. I don't support Bilbao or any other team in Spain. It's got * all to do with me what their signing policy is....I have no moral issue with it....I am simply interested in why it's allowed to exist in one of Europe's top leagues.

So I take it Bilbao do not bother employing any scouts at all then? Or at least none that go to watch football outside of the Basque region.
No point in employing a scout to operate in even Portugal unless they are there to watch a Basque born player who plays for a Portuguese club.

Would it be the case that they could watch a youth game, be interested in a player, until they find out he's from outside the Basque region....at which point they drop their interest immediately?? I'm sure this probably has happened at some point. I would also think it could be classed as discrimination

 

"Celtic Football Club is open to all, embracing inclusivity and promoting social integration. The club's social charter emphasizes inclusivity, regardless of age, *, religion, race, or ability."



That is our mission statement i believe.
Only signing players from one region of the country is not being open to all....and it's not who we are.
We have always been proud, public and vocal that we have always signed players of any nationality, any religion, any background. That was all irrelevant.....as long as they were good enough to wear the Celtic shirt, that was the only stipulation. We were proud to say this whilst other clubs most definitely couldn't say it about themselves.

We might empathise somewhat with the Basque region's struggle for independence. But we kind of have the exact opposite policy of Bilbao when it comes to signing players and inclusion

 

.......or look at it this way.

Hypothetical situation...

2 young pals go to watch Atletico Bilbao at all their home matches...they wear Bilbao shirts and have posters on their bedroom walls of all the players and the team photos etc.

One is from the Basque region of Spain.
The other lad is originally from Madrid and his family moved to the region when he was very young.

The Basque kid can dream that one day he'll play in the cup final for Atletico and maybe even score the winning goal
The other kid can't.....cause he's from Madrid and the club won't sign him.....so it's definitely no going to happen

It's discrimination I think

 

If the kid from Madrid trained at Athletic's academy, and was good enough, he'd absolutely be selected to play for them.

 

Both kids could have played for Athletic. Plenty of examples of players not born in the Basque Country who played for Athletic. I believe the most recent example is Cristian Ganea. Born in Romania by romanian parents. Moved to the Basque Country at an early age and played for Athletic.

Athletic down to 10 men and losing 0-3 to Man Utd at half time.

 

There is nothing wrong with giving local lads a shot.
It becomes a problem when you ONLY give local lads a shot.

It's not my problem or Celtic's problem and I have no emotional response to it actually. I don't care. I am just interested as why it's allowed to happen in this day and age and in one of Europe's top leagues.

Messi, Ronaldo, Raul, Iniesta, Xavi, Rivaldo, Figo, Zidane, Kaka, Ronaldinho, Van Nistlerooy, David Villa, Fernando Torres,
All brilliant players. All played in Spain.
But none of them make the grade to be signed by Atletic Bilbao.
How do you expect to achieve success when your policy dictates that you cannot sign any of these players or anyone similar??

 

But if he was good enough and didn't train at the Athletic academy then he wouldn't even be considered

 

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Cristian Ganea never played for Ahletic's youth team. Moved to the Basque Country when he was a kid. He doesn't even hold spanish citizenship. They couldn't care less where you were born. They just want their players to have strong ties with the local community.

Success isn't necessarily measured by trophies. Athletic's success derives from the fact they are deeply rooted in the local community. Fwiw, they have also won plenty of trophies trailing only Madrid and Barca in la liga titles and only Barca in copa del rey titles.