Zonker:No I did not. That is another thing I forgot to mention ! Thanks (and HOWL) for adding that. But since this rule does not affect the contractual status of a player, but only his ability to play, it did not come to my mind when CW asked about contracts...

And to give College Wolf the complete package: Actually things are a little bit more complicated, but I will try to make it simple and just use a few bullte points...

1. A player can be UNDER CONTRACT with as many teams he likes during the period from July 1st to June 30th of the subsequent year.

2. He may be REGISTERED as a player only with three teams during that period (registration is required for a player to be allowed to play for the team).

3. He may PLAY IN OFFICIAL MATCHES (thereby excluding exibition games) only for two teams during that period.

That means he is unlikely to switch teams more often than two time per years since the new team would not be able to make big usage of tha player, but legally, he can change teams as often as he wants.

EDIT: Those regulations are often beneficial to teams which want to buy a young talent with lots of upside, but do not see a chance that he might crack the rotation sometime soon (maybe because they are in the title hunt and can't afford to give playing time to unproven youngsters). In that case, they can buy the player from the team he was registered with, but refrain from registering him themselves, leaving one unrestricted registration \"open\" for another team, enabling them to loan that player to a small market team where he can play one or two full seasons to gain experience and develop.

Since this looks to become the one and official \"soccer thread\":

@ Zonker:
Keep your head up, pal! I feel for you and your national team. With the painful loss against the Spaniards (1:3) today in Aarhus, the chance of participating in next year's ECs is gone for good. Bad luck!

I really like the Danish National Team, by the way, and would have enjoyed seeing them at the ECs. I am one of those annoying German tourists that come invading your beautiful country every summer and have been to Denmark as many as 11 times. But the most treasured memories I have is when me and my Dad went to local pubs in the years of 1992 (especially that year - Denmark was the surprise team to win the ECs...against the Germans, I may add) and 1998 (where they reached the quaterfinals of the WC) to watch soccer with the locals. We always fraternized with your kind countrymen, and I do remember chanting the famous \"we are red, we are white - we are Danish dynamite\" together with them. My brother even bought a jersey of Brian Laudrup back in those \"golden days\" of Danish soccer.

The Germans are holding a 0:0 draw against Ireland at the moment, but they don't look that good against the tough and gritty Irishi Team. In the end, I do expect this game to end like this, enabling Germany to be the first team to qualify for the upcoming ECs...

Sanyarin wrote:
Whoa. I know you posted this quite a while ago, but I must have missed. I just saw it now because of your new post below it.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated!