When Trevor Brooking, one of the most diplomatic of men, says English soccer has a major problem because of the influx of foreign players, the time has come for action.
The trouble is there’s precious little action that can actually be taken to improve the situation Brooking, the English FA’s director of development, is so concerned about.
Since the 1995 Bosman Ruling and subsequent changes to EU law brought down the barriers on cross-border employment, and TV money made the English game the richest in the world, it seems every decent or even half-decent player has tried to earn himself a considerable crust in England.
The impact of this has been obvious for years: imported talent naturally makes it even harder for local youngsters to reach the highest level. The very best always will, but clubs increasingly go out and buy the finished article from overseas rather than wait for their youngsters to mature.
In England, Chelsea and Arsenal in particular have fielded teams that did not include one English player. That is now nothing new. What is new, though, is that because the top teams are fielding fewer and fewer English players, the pool of elite talent from which the national team is selected is diminishing.
As Brooking says, “Its a major concern. In 10 years time you dont want us just being pleased to qualify for tournaments.
England are a long way from securing their place at Euro 2008 and must beat Israel and Russia at Wembley in the next eight days to keep their chances alive. But even if they do win and eventually reach the finals, the problem will continue.
The only answer is for clubs to abandon their search for foreign stars and start developing their own who actually come through and regularly play for the first team of their club. In
England that hasn’t happened since Manchester United — and subsequently England — profited from the likes of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Gary and Philip Neville in the mid-1990s.
Don’t hold your breath. It’s unlikely to happen again soon.
Mike Collett, London
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8 comments so far
Well, its fact that since there is a lack of talent in England, clubs like Chelsea and Arsenal have to look towards continental Europe and Africa to sign new players.
- Posted by NachiketThe fact that England are struggling in the Euro qualifiers due to injury to some experienced senior players and lack of young talent, should be an eye opener for the English FA.
Look at Arsenal for example. They may have fielded teams with not a single English player in their side, but they have invested in grooming young talent. So what u get is a young man like Fabregas and Walcott who after a few seasons are hailed as amongst the best.
Walcott still needs to prove a lot and has just had one season at Arsenal, but his improvements are there for every one to see.
But the likes of Walcott are far few and between. But there may be many like him in England be it in the lower leagues or not given a chance at all. Like Arsenal has, it is high time that the authorities invest in developing young talent and having a secure pool of decent players, which can be dipped into when there is a need like there is now.
The lower leagues could also do with some big investments, as thats where many English lads play and that is a good platform from where they can take off and go on to be a part of the top Premier league teams and English national setup.
First off I should say that I’m an advocate of teams having to field a minimum of 5 English players, but I’d go further and say they need at least two born within the locality. However I’m realistic in that I can’t see this ever happening because the clubs have retained the genius of the cream of the European legal profession and will fight tooth and nail over the rights of players to peddle their skills anywhere in Europe despite the fact it’s killing the game.
However introducing such a rule will not, in my humble opinion, improve the performance of the English team. The English team suffers through poor management and it has probably since Venables departed. We need a manager who is not afraid to pick his own team and impose his own style of play and crucially one who is prepared to ignore the moronic cries of the tabloid press. I will guarantee that if you put Coppell or O’Neill in charge you would see a team that included players who are not household names and even some from the lower leagues. You would also see a team playing with passion, guts and pride. You could argue that Keegan tried to adopt this approach and it’s a fair shout but I think Keegan he was to betwixt & between and tried to do it with household names instead of dropping those who wouldn’t perform and pick those who could.
With all the scientific advances we’ve seen in recent years perhaps we should clone Brian Clough and give him the chance
- Posted by JimYou’re right that we won’t get a generation like that man utd team again. and don’t forget there were other very talented english players who came through at more or less the same time as well, including owen, mcmanaman, redknapp, fowler, barmby, anderton, not to mention the leeds united kids a little later.
- Posted by Londonthe club academies these days are full of hungarians and south americans. if they can’t push through the six plus five rule to ensure a minimum of home grown players then the least they could do would be to have a limit on foreign players at the academies.
germany put us to shame the other week.
The problem with england is those tabloid know it alls who practically chose the team then whinge when it loses. look at sven now.
- Posted by njau–The English team suffers through poor management and it has probably since Venables departed. We need a manager who is not afraid to pick his own team and impose his own style of play and crucially one who is prepared to ignore the moronic cries of the tabloid press.– Jim
I couldn’t have said it better myself. To sum it up, McClaren needs to find the intestinal fortitude to do what Van Basten did, pick mostly young players and nurture them together right from the very start. You don’t need big names to win an international cup, just look at Greece.
- Posted by Five TimesThat he’s going to pick Gerrard and Hargreaves when only half fit sys it all. There must be a couple of determined young midfielders capable of playing and doing well against Israel.
- Posted by RafaI think Trevor is trying to pass the blame from the FA to the Premiership when the real point is that we now have good set of English players and have had since the mid 90’s and through the FA’s bad management, bad decisions of managers and lack of insight the have constantly underachieved. How can we be talking about their not being a next generation when the current “quality” generation are struggling to qualify?
- Posted by Andythey are going to come from
Spurs
Villa
and the chiampioship
this is because Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal… only like buying forign players
- Posted by Mark Hustwayte