MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Reducing the limit on the number of foreigners allowed to play for the clubs of the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) will help to raise the competitive level of young national players in view of Russia’s ban from international tournaments, President of the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) Vladislav Tretiak told TASS on Tuesday.
On April 19, the RHF submitted a proposal to the Russian Sports Ministry to cut the number of foreign players permitted to play for KHL clubs from five to three.
On May 19, RHF Chairman of the Board of Directors and a member of the KHL Board of Directors Arkady Rotenberg announced that the permitted number of foreign players on the team’s roster before each match would be reduced from five to three beginning with the 2023/2024 KHL’s regular season. KHL President Alexey Morozov stated later that the league’s management had not discussed tightening the limit.
"We have always looked to impose a limit and today it turned out that many players from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden and Finland departed [from the KHL clubs]," Tretiak said in an interview with TASS. "This is why I have always believed that each club should have on its roster three strong foreign players instead of five weak ones."
"It is also because coaches, who invite foreign players, believe that we owe something to the legionnaires. They [foreign players] are granted privileges, play in the starting lines, while our players mostly remain on the bench," the RHF chief continued.
"This is why we believe that starting next season it will be enough to have three foreign players [per club]. The Championship will not suffer," Tretiak noted.
The Kontinental Hockey League was founded in Russia in 2008 and lists 22 professional ice hockey clubs, namely from Russia, Belarus, China and Kazakhstan.
"We now have the time to take care of our ice hockey in light of sanctions and the ban on international tournaments’ participation, therefore, in two or three years time we must nurture our young generation of players," he continued.
"If there are only three [foreign] players on the ice then there will be more youngsters, whom we will grant the chance to unlock their potential in order to join the national teams of our country," Tretiak added.
IIHF’s sanctions against Russia, Belarus
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Congress, hosted by Finland’s Tampere on May 27, voted that the national teams of Russia and Belarus would be sidelined at the 2023 World Championship, just like at the recent 2022 Ice Hockey World Championship, due to the ongoing developments in Ukraine.
However, at its meeting in late September, the IIHF Congress announced that the national ice hockey teams from Russia and Belarus would remain in the top division of the world championships after sanctions against their countries were lifted. According to IIHF President Luc Tardif it meant that there was no aggression at all toward Russia.
In late April, the IIHF announced a decision to cancel its previously scheduled 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship in St.Petersburg, Russia. The global organization also nixed the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship, slated to be hosted by the Russian cities of Novosibirsk and Omsk.
On February 28, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC recommendations in late February, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.