International club soccer tournaments have been held since the mid-1950's but have not become big until the late 1960's and the 1970's and the emergence of Ajax Amsterdam and Bayern Munich. Big powers were then national, including the Romanian slaves in Steaua Bucharest (controlled by Nicolai Ceausescu's KGB). The Soviet clubs, heavily doped up by the secret medical labs, also had quite a bit of success.
In 1995, the European Court issued a ruling based on a law suit filed by a Belgian player Jean Marc Bosman, who in essence challenged the existing "reserve clause". To go along in ruling in Bosman's favor, the EU court also ruled that the member states could no longer limit the number of foreign players per club, as long as they were from an EU member (or, subsequently, the Schengen Treaty members). That changed the world soccer more than anything in the preceding 100+ years by creating European super clubs that could simply bring in top players from anywhere in the world.
Meaning that Shaka's ramblings are entirely void of context.
