IF england introduced a foreign player quota for the premiership, would it actually be legal under race laws ?

Probably not, but I'm not sure what you mean by "foreign player quota". I thought that was only for sports.

A quota for foreign players registered to members of the Premiership would not be racist, unless that quota were assigned to races, i.e. three black players, three Asian players.

The quota may break restriction of trade laws and result in endless civil suits.

In either case a Premiership club may not restrict the opportunities of fellow EU citizens to work freely in a member EU state.

There used to be a ruling in the old English Football League Division where clubs were restricted to fielding a maximum of 3 foreign players.

Then this 2nd rate tit of a player Marc Bosman came along and for some obscure personal reason launched a European court case to overturn this ruling. And he won.

See link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

edit: maybe I am misunderstanding the question (wilfred b). I was trying to simplify and compress my answer. As far as I am aware, certainly the Bosman ruling began life as his personal objection to re-registering with another club but as a by-product of that case a whole can of worms was opened up and race issues were then addressed which in turn over-ruled the mandate restricting clubs to fielding more than 3 foreign players.

Yes. It would be entirely legal. EU Nationals would not, of course, count as foreign.

Non-EU nationals need work permits to work in the EU, and part of acquiring a permit is satisfying the immigration authorities that no EU national is available of willing to do the job to the same standard.

Race laws exist to prevent hate crime and discrimination against British Citizens, not to limit the rights of EU workers.

BLOKHEED: Bosman's obscure personal reason was this. His contract with his club had finished. The club had not renewed it so were not paying him. But they still held his playing registration and were demanding a massive fee to release him to play for someone else, even though they weren't prepared to offer him a contract.

Put into everyday terms - you have a 12 month contract working for Tesco. The contract comes to an end. They don't renew. But they can prevent you taking a job with Sainsbury unless Sainsbury pay them a huge fee for your services, even though you no longer have a contract with Tesco.

Is it any wonder that this was found illegal - if it hadn't been Bosman, it would have been someone else.

blokheed the bosman rules had nothing to do with this ruling the bosman rule was re registration and contract nothing to do with race or foreign nationals