Soon a third foreigner in the Oberliga?

Created: 04/13/2022, 11:45 am

By: Roland Halmel

The part-time worker celebrates: The Czech Lukas Motloch was one of three contingent players at EC Peiting last season.

However, since only two were allowed to play at a time, Motloch sat in the stands several times.

© Holger Wieland

Should there be a third quota position per team in the Oberliga?

EC Peiting is skeptical about the proposal from league rivals Riessersee.

Peiting – 15 years ago, in the 2007/08 season, Milos Vavrusa, Jaro Mares, Simon Barg, Kyle Orr and Doug Orr had three Canadians and two Czechs under contract at EC Peiting.

After that, the number of positions for foreigners in the Oberliga was gradually reduced.

The clubs are now only allowed to employ two contingent players without a German passport.

But that could possibly change.

According to Peiting's managing director Peter Gast, Pana Christakakis, his counterpart from league rival SC Riessersee, recently brought an increase to three foreigners into play.

“The German player market is thin and expensive at the same time.

The prices that are requested are insane.

Any quality player can ask for whatever they want," said Christakakis.

The SCR managing director hopes that this measure will have a price-dampening effect, which would relieve the players' budgets of the clubs.

Discussions about the third quota position in the Oberliga

"We have to discuss that, but the association will probably not agree," says ECP Managing Director Peter Gast on Christakakis' proposal.

Gast still sees the Oberliga as a training league, although the majority of clubs start with full professional teams.

“Our play-off opponent Halle is just developing the youngsters, they also have paid professionals in the third and fourth rows,” said Gast.

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In almost all teams from the north, but also in more and more clubs from the south, there are hardly any players who have a regular job alongside ice hockey.

Teams like EC Peiting or Füssen are an exception.

They rely on players from their own offspring, who they train over many years.

"But that's the problem.

If they then play in the premier league, they are poached away by financially strong clubs," says Gast.

Peiting's managing director advocates the introduction of a training allowance, with which the clubs are rewarded for their youth work.

"We also have to think about such issues and not just about increasing the number of foreigners." Gast makes it clear that he is skeptical about the plans to increase the number of players to three contingents.

If three contingent players had been allowed to play last season, Peitingen would have had one less problem.

With the Dutchman Nardo Nagtzaam, the Czech Lukas Motloch and the Canadian Shane Heffernan, the ECP had three foreign players under contract.

Now it is not the case that those responsible in Peiting cannot calculate.

Originally, Nagtzaam was to be naturalized and given a German passport in the short term.

However, the process is dragging on – the outcome is uncertain.

Since the Dutchman is seeded in the Peitinger team, Motloch and Heffernan could only be used alternately.