Mura wins at the green table, the “guilty”… Matevž Vidovšek?! No, the Olimpija goalkeeper meets the criteria for a home-grown player
After Football Association of Slovenia (NZS) registered the match between Koper and Rogaska as 3:0 for the Primorje team, a witch-hunt of sorts has apparently started in Slovenia. Or, if you prefer: scrutinising match reports to see if clubs are strictly following the new home-grown rule. After the victory of Olimpija against Mura, social networks were flooded with comments that Prekmurans should complain that Olimpija played with only seven players, not eight, who were home-grown.
The controversy is about Matevž Vidovšek, who claims that Korošec’s early departure from Slovenia to Italy does not meet the criteria set by the NZS. But this is not the case. Matevž Vidovšek played two seasons in Slovenia before moving abroad at the age of 15, returning home shortly before his 21st birthday. Although some websites, including Transfermarkt, record that Vidovšek only became a member of Olimpija on 19 January 2021, this is not the case. Well, if that were the case, then Vidovšek would not really be home-grown. But as I said – this is not the case.
Just a little browsing on the World Wide Web is enough: Olimpija officially confirmed Vidovšek’s return to Slovenia on 30 September 2020, a month before the footballer turns 21. Birthday. According to the documentation available on the website of the Football Association of Slovenia, the then 20-year-old Vidovšek was officially registered as a new member of Olimpija on 6 October 2020.
Meanwhile, the rules on home-grown footballers state: “A home-grown player is a player who was among the 15. at the age of 15 or at the start of the season in which he/she reaches 15. years and 21. on or before the end of the season in which he reaches the age of 21 and, regardless of his nationality or age, has been registered continuously or intermittently for a period of at least three competition seasons with his current club (club-trained player) or another Slovenian club (association-trained player), or 36. months.” Vidovšek was therefore among the 15. and 21. registered in Slovenia for three seasons, but it is true that he has not been registered for 36 months, which is almost impossible in many cases anyway (the season starts in July and ends in May…). Regardless of everything, we have learned that Matevž Vidovšek is registered in the NHS register as a football player with home-grown status.
So if anyone made a mistake, it was certainly not the Ljubljana club.
This text was automatically translated using AI.
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#Football Federation of Slovenia
#matevžvidovšek
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