Platini and Blatter to meet over quota plans

By Mike Collett

MOSCOW (Reuters) - FIFA President Sepp Blatter will meet his UEFA counterpart Michel Platini on Wednesday in an attempt to settle their differences over Blatter's controversial plan for limits on overseas players.

Blatter has insisted for months that he would ask the FIFA Congress in Sydney at the end of this month to endorse the so-called '6+5 ruling' allowing club teams to start a match with no more than five foreign players.

However, the European Union has warned the rule proposed by world soccer's governing body would conflict with its own laws on the free movement of labour, risking court action.

A UEFA source told Reuters on Tuesday that Blatter would still present the idea to FIFA's 208 members in Sydney but will now ask them merely for a mandate to examine the idea further.

"This is not the same as asking Congress to impose the ruling," the source said.

"...it will be something of a climbdown because he will just ask them for a mandate and he will not ask Congress to agree to implement the quota system with a start date from 2010."

FIFA declined to comment on its position, which has been unchanged since its Congress in Zurich a year ago approved examining the idea.

Last November, FIFA's executive committee in Durban voted to put the proposal before the Congress in Sydney.