European championship finals will feature 24 teams instead of 16 from 2016, senior UEFA committee member Franz Beckenbauer said on Thursday. “It has been agreed, it will be announced at a news conference Friday,” German Beckenbauer told Reuters. The former World Cup-winning captain and coach, who is also a member of FIFA's executive committee, said the expansion was endorsed on the first day of a two-day meeting of the executive committee of European soccer's governing body. The decision was expected, despite criticism that it could dilute the quality of the event, after senior officials of all 53 UEFA member nations backed the idea in June. Poland and Ukraine's lack of progress in preparing to host Euro 2012 will be examined at the Bordeaux meeting on Friday. EU against 6+5 rule Aggressive lobbying of governments by FIFA President Sepp Blatter will not alter the European Union's opposition to limiting the number of foreign players at soccer clubs, the bloc's top sports regulator said. EU Sports Commissioner Jan Figel warned Blatter earlier this year that his proposals to limit the number of foreign players starting any club match to five breached EU laws on the free movement of workers. But soccer's top official has been meeting politicians, senior sports officials and the European Parliament in recent months in an attempt to persuade them of the merits of his so-called “6+5” rule. “As you know Sepp Blatter visited the president of the European Parliament ... but the message is clear, 6+5 is not compatible with EU rules, I am not a lawyer, I am an engineer, but this is definitive,” EU Sports Commissioner Jan Figel told Reuters in an interview. Any country which allows its soccer associations or leagues to introduce the 6+5 rule will face legal action by Brussels at the European Court of Justice - Europe's highest court - which could lead to hefty fines, Figel said. Blatter argues that sport's social aspect means it should not be treated like other industries and therefore exempted from some EU laws because of its special nature - known as specificity. “Specificity does not mean defacto exclusivity,” Figel said. “Sport cannot be above or outside the legal space.” FIFA fines Croatia FIFA has fined the Croatia Football Federation $27,700 after fans directed racist chants at an England player during a World Cup qualifier. The governing body's disciplinary committee also threatened Croatia with a more severe punishment if it did not control the problem in future. FIFA said in a statement Thursday it would use “all of the means at its disposal to eliminate this form of discrimination.”
