rez9000
Any point?
- Feb 8, 2007
- 11,942
- 21,098
Failing to qualify for Euro 2008 is embarrasing. Of course we didn't have the automatic right to be there, but it's still humiliating for a country with supposedly 'the best league in the world' to fail to qualify. Even qualification would have been slightly embarrasing as we would have made it in large part due to other results, rather than our own efforts.
English football has a great pedigree. We formalised the rules that have developed into the modern game. We're World Cup winners. We have the richest and most watched league in the world. So what's wrong with English football? For me, there are a number of problems.
Chief among them is the sheer volume of foreign players in our leagues. Instead of fostering domestic talent, the top clubs simply bus in stars from outside of England. As a result English players have fewer opportunities to develop their skills. The cliched answer to that has always been 'well, if the English players are good enough then they'll be picked by the big clubs anyway'. I consider that to be circular thinking. When clubs buy foreign players thay deny the opportunity for English players to play and train at the highest levels. What the current setup is doing is putting the onus on young English players to become world-beaters first and then get the opportunity to play at the top. Not every English player will be a prodigy like Rooney or Beckham. And not every young English player will have access to state-of-the-art training facilities and coaches with which to develop their skills, or the opportunity to hone those skills in competitive matches.
The number of foreign players also carries another problem: knowledge. Foreign players in our leagues learn about the best English players while they play here. They then have a greater knowledge of what makes individual players tick and can then transfer that to their national team should they play against England. We all remember the infamous Cristiano Ronaldo 'wink' in the World Cup Quarter-Final. He had first-hand knowledge of how to wind Rooney up and, as a result, was a contributory factor in Rooney's red-card.
One more problem with the volume of foreign players. With fewer top quality English players competing for places in the national side, players who are picked for England become complacent in their almost automatic selection. When a player believes he's a shoe-in for the England squad, he doesn't feel as if he needs to perform to hold his place down. Good examples from both sides of the coin are Lampard and Wright-Phillips. When Lampard was first picked for England, he worked like the proverbial bitch. He was an absolute workhorse. Once he had consolidated his position, once he became a 'first-name on the team sheet' England player, his effort vanished. On the flipside is Shaun Wright-Phillips. His position is under threat from David Beckham and Aaron Lennon (although Lennon's threat is a little less urgent these days). As a result, he's tireless on the pitch, and busts a gut every time he plays. He may not have done very well last night, but he did try.
Now, before I'm branded a Nazi and start being courted as the BNPs next local councillor candidate, I would like to say that I believe the presence of foreign players in English football does have a wide array of positives too. The technical proficiency of non-English players and the beauty of play that foreign players bring to English football makes the domestic game a joy to behold. However, this thread I feel shows that you can have too much of a good thing.
Another problem in the English game is money. Not, with the fact that there is too much of it. But rather that too much of it is concentrated in the too few places. Most of the money in the English game is concentrated in the Premier League. The massive gap between the Premier League is denying much-needed funds for the grass roots of the game, and the gap is widening.
And speaking of grass-roots, another problem is the lack of quality in academies and training schools. That aspect of the game is handed to clubs to operate, with very few independent football academies. Those that exist are underfunded and have a lack of facilities and ameneties.
Chairman. The whole area of club ownership is problematic. Anyone with enough money can take over a football club and this carries problems. Abramovich’s time at Chelsea has made a mockery of the English game. Chelsea’s successes during his tenure were bought, pure and simple. Now, buying players is all well and good and is part and parcel of football. But the sheer amount of money he has spent, the manner in which he has constructed a trophy-winning side has further pulled football away from concepts of toil and effort and work and personal achievement and pushed it even further into the realm of money and agent’s fees and business.
More money is also inherently dangerous. As clubs try to compete in the harsher, cut-throat environment that football is becoming, some clubs are going to the wall, or at the very least becoming too familiar with the brickwork. Leeds is the perfect example. The last team to win the old Division One title, where are they now? League One (doing very well, of course, but still League One). They borrowed heavily to try and build a title-winning squad and they paid a dear price for it. They have been forced to sell their training ground and their stadium. They have had 25 points deducted from them in the last two seasons due to financial difficulties, and their status off the pitch is still precarious. For a side that less than twenty years ago was the top club in the country, it’s been a long drop.
So what’s the solution?
English football has a great pedigree. We formalised the rules that have developed into the modern game. We're World Cup winners. We have the richest and most watched league in the world. So what's wrong with English football? For me, there are a number of problems.
Chief among them is the sheer volume of foreign players in our leagues. Instead of fostering domestic talent, the top clubs simply bus in stars from outside of England. As a result English players have fewer opportunities to develop their skills. The cliched answer to that has always been 'well, if the English players are good enough then they'll be picked by the big clubs anyway'. I consider that to be circular thinking. When clubs buy foreign players thay deny the opportunity for English players to play and train at the highest levels. What the current setup is doing is putting the onus on young English players to become world-beaters first and then get the opportunity to play at the top. Not every English player will be a prodigy like Rooney or Beckham. And not every young English player will have access to state-of-the-art training facilities and coaches with which to develop their skills, or the opportunity to hone those skills in competitive matches.
The number of foreign players also carries another problem: knowledge. Foreign players in our leagues learn about the best English players while they play here. They then have a greater knowledge of what makes individual players tick and can then transfer that to their national team should they play against England. We all remember the infamous Cristiano Ronaldo 'wink' in the World Cup Quarter-Final. He had first-hand knowledge of how to wind Rooney up and, as a result, was a contributory factor in Rooney's red-card.
One more problem with the volume of foreign players. With fewer top quality English players competing for places in the national side, players who are picked for England become complacent in their almost automatic selection. When a player believes he's a shoe-in for the England squad, he doesn't feel as if he needs to perform to hold his place down. Good examples from both sides of the coin are Lampard and Wright-Phillips. When Lampard was first picked for England, he worked like the proverbial bitch. He was an absolute workhorse. Once he had consolidated his position, once he became a 'first-name on the team sheet' England player, his effort vanished. On the flipside is Shaun Wright-Phillips. His position is under threat from David Beckham and Aaron Lennon (although Lennon's threat is a little less urgent these days). As a result, he's tireless on the pitch, and busts a gut every time he plays. He may not have done very well last night, but he did try.
Now, before I'm branded a Nazi and start being courted as the BNPs next local councillor candidate, I would like to say that I believe the presence of foreign players in English football does have a wide array of positives too. The technical proficiency of non-English players and the beauty of play that foreign players bring to English football makes the domestic game a joy to behold. However, this thread I feel shows that you can have too much of a good thing.
Another problem in the English game is money. Not, with the fact that there is too much of it. But rather that too much of it is concentrated in the too few places. Most of the money in the English game is concentrated in the Premier League. The massive gap between the Premier League is denying much-needed funds for the grass roots of the game, and the gap is widening.
And speaking of grass-roots, another problem is the lack of quality in academies and training schools. That aspect of the game is handed to clubs to operate, with very few independent football academies. Those that exist are underfunded and have a lack of facilities and ameneties.
Chairman. The whole area of club ownership is problematic. Anyone with enough money can take over a football club and this carries problems. Abramovich’s time at Chelsea has made a mockery of the English game. Chelsea’s successes during his tenure were bought, pure and simple. Now, buying players is all well and good and is part and parcel of football. But the sheer amount of money he has spent, the manner in which he has constructed a trophy-winning side has further pulled football away from concepts of toil and effort and work and personal achievement and pushed it even further into the realm of money and agent’s fees and business.
More money is also inherently dangerous. As clubs try to compete in the harsher, cut-throat environment that football is becoming, some clubs are going to the wall, or at the very least becoming too familiar with the brickwork. Leeds is the perfect example. The last team to win the old Division One title, where are they now? League One (doing very well, of course, but still League One). They borrowed heavily to try and build a title-winning squad and they paid a dear price for it. They have been forced to sell their training ground and their stadium. They have had 25 points deducted from them in the last two seasons due to financial difficulties, and their status off the pitch is still precarious. For a side that less than twenty years ago was the top club in the country, it’s been a long drop.
So what’s the solution?
