Is extra foreigner favour or farce?

Happy days... Western Sydney foreigners' Lacopo La Rocca and Youssouf Hersi embrace. Source: Theron Kirkman / AAP

Underneath the feel-good fanfare breaking the Wanderers bandwagon, there's a school of criticism from rival fans who are unhappy that Western Sydney are allowed to have one extra foreign player on their books.

While all A-League clubs are granted five foreign spots, the Wanderers have Shinji Ono (Japan), Youssouf Hersi (Holland), Jerome Polenz (Germany), Mateo Poljak (Croatia), Dino Kresinger (Croatia) and Iacopo La Rocca (Italy) on their books.

The extra spot was an imperative safety measure as the fledgling club was hastily assembled by Tony Popovic. The league couldn't afford another expansion side to fail.

But now that they’ve succeeded, plenty of fans have questioned the inequality.

It’s been interesting gauging the response from Fox Sports football fans. In our #ALeaguechat on Twitter on Monday, plenty felt the dispensation doesn’t need to be applied next season.

Tom Moxey: "It's fair to go back to 5. We have established ourselves now".

Who is the top coach in the A-League?

Amanda Traficante: "Obviously their form and support has shown they are capable to join the rest of the league on level playing field."

SSouthy: "The team has made its impact its time to have a playing field evened out."

Patrick Barnes: "Team is well and truly 'competitive' now, don't need the extra help anymore."

Enrico Mezzatesta: "I'm a Wanderers fan and feel that one season was enough to balance things out but 2 seasons is unfair."

Back in October, Arnold was taken aback by the decision - well before anyone could have imagined the Wanderers would be pushing the Mariners all the way in the title race.

"I feel probably like all the other clubs - pretty hard done by," Arnold said at the time.

"If you look at Melbourne Heart, when they came into the league they didn't get any help, they only had five visa spots and all the other clubs have only got five.

"You'd like it to be a fair playing field but it's not right now. I understand the reason is because they are a late inclusion and they only had 186 days or so to prepare, but I was a bit surprised when I heard about it."

Head of A-League Damien de Bohun says concerns before the season made the additional spot an imperative and insists they will remain next term.

"Given that Western Sydney Wanderers were set up in around 140 days, and many contracted players were already contracted to Hyundai A-League clubs, the FFA and the clubs decided to grant Western Sydney up to an additional two foreign players in their first two years in the competition because of concerns at the time about the strength of the playing squad," de Bohun told foxsports.com.au recently.

"In assembling their squad, the Wanderers have availed themselves of one additional foreign player on the roster.

"Given the nature of playing contracts and squad management, this additional foreign player will be in place for Western Sydney Wanderers for one season."

Fair or farce - what do you think?

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