There has been a lot of talk since the end of the transfer window about the number of foreign players in the Premier League. Big names such as Rio Ferdinand have voiced their displeasure at seeing teams fielding very few local names, and have suggested there should be a cap on the number of foreign players at a club, using Turkey as an example, where teams are only allowed a maximum of 10 foreign players on their books and no more than 6 in any match day squad. This has been exacerbated by the very average performance by England in the recent World Cup qualifier against Ukraine. The national team's lack of success is certainly something that needs to be rectified, but there are a multitude of reasons for the underwhelming performances over the last 47 years.
As an FA qualified coach, I've seen the inefficiencies of the grassroots system, both at club level and in the coaching process. Young players play large games, where they are 'told' what to do and where to stand without being explained the reasons behind this, rendering them incapable of making the intelligent movement we associate with continental players. FA Chairman, Greg Dyke has stated that a new £340m initiative has been set up to aid player development "through the structuring and implementation of the Elite Player Performance Plan". However, we have seen numerous generations of senior FA officials promise to revamp the youth system in England, without any success. Furthermore, even if a change finally does come, the fruits of this will not be evident for at least another decade. Even at European level, youth development has been dealt a blow with the brilliant NextGen series failing to secure funding, a competition which showed promise for English teams with Aston Villa winning the competition last year and Arsenal and Chelsea reaching the semi-finals.
Aside from the number of foreign players limiting chances of young English talent and poor grassroots development, the English media is often on a witch hunt during international games and we have seen the careers of players such as Robert Green affected by poor performances for the national team, causing players to be more skeptical about joining up with the national side. Furthermore, English players do seem to attract a premium, meaning that teams would rather look abroad for a player of similar quality, with a smaller price tag. This means that English players are often loaned out for the wrong reasons, to recoup finances. We have however seen successful use of the loan system by Premier League clubs in the last few years, with the likes of Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge getting regular game time and shining in their spells at Sunderland and Bolton respectively. Yet the question that I have been asking myself is why do we rarely see English players loaned abroad? We often state that clubs should go out of their way to promote the young English talent in their clubs, but are they obligated to? The clubs are an organisation in themselves and surely they will look to sign the best players at the cheapest price. If this means sacrificing a decent young English player for someone with better technical ability then surely that is their prerogative. Clubs won't sacrifice playing a young English talent if they are good enough to get into the first team, as we have seen for example with the integration of Raheem Sterling into the Liverpool squad over the last year. Perhaps players should take it upon themselves to push for loan moves abroad if they feel they are unlikely to get into the first team, which may particularly be the case at bigger teams.
Transfers of English players to foreign clubs are rare themselves, unless it comes in the form of a high profile signing, such as Beckham or Owen or if it is a player at the end of their career looking for afinal payday new challenge, though there are exceptions such as Michael Mancienne. However, players loaned out to foreign clubs are even more scarce and I would argue, whilst the effects of any grass-root changes take shape, surely a good way of developing young talent in this country would be to give them game time abroad. There is no doubt that England lags behind some of our European counterparts in terms of technical development so perhaps training in a different system would improve aspects of player's games that are not as well nurtured in English academies.
Some people would argue that loaning English players out to Premier League or even Championship clubs would be more beneficial as they can gain experience of the pace and physicality of English football. This may well be true, but strength is something which can be built up later on in a career, technical ability on the other hand needs to be developed from a young age. Furthermore we are seeing the successful integration of more and more smaller, but more skillful players in the Premier League with the likes of David Silva and Santi Cazorla shining despite suggestions they may struggle to adapt to the physicality of the English game. EU labour laws would also mean that any potential loan moves would be fairly easy, avoiding the red tape associated with non-EU players. There are English clubs that have partnerships with foreign clubs, such as Manchester United with Royal Antwerp and Chelsea with Vitesse Arnhem, that have seen players such as John O'Shea, Johnny Evans, Ryan Shawcross, Danny Simpson have loan spells with Royal Antwerp (granted, not sparkling examples of players that have become technically gifted- but Premier League regulars nonetheless), and Lucas Piazon, Gael Kakuta, Christian Atsu and Englishman Sam Hutchinson all currently on loan at Vitesse.
One of the biggest reasons why these loan moves may not be so common is an issue that surpasses football. English is the international language of business and therefore taught from a very young age to students in countries across the world. However, we certainly do not put the same emphasis on other languages in our schools, with a choice of French, German or Spanish often being seen as secondary to the primary subjects of Maths, English and Science. Ironically, recent statistics would suggest that English is in fact the third most spoken (native) language (335 million approx) in the world after Mandarin (848 million approx) and Spanish (406 million approx). Perhaps we are slower to embrace foreign cultures, meaning that young players do not want to take a leap of faith even in loan moves abroad, unlike the young, foreign talent that fills English academies. Another external factor that causes a footballing problem may be that the strength of the Pound means that the contracts of English players are more expensive and foreign clubs are not willing to foot the wage bill for an English loanee.
There are footballing projects that specialise in bringing English talent to foreign countries such as League Football Education Player Placement Program, whose Placement Coordinatior is John Gontier who rightly told me that "English academies do a great job of training and nurturing young English talent. However having to compete against the best worldwide imports many good players get released." The project seeks to blend the inherent 'English grit' with the 'Spanish way' of playing in order to breed successful footballers. This is perhaps a view that Premier League clubs should consider and loaning their youth players to countries such as Spain may well not only provide youngsters with game time but also a new footballing outlook, not to mention invaluable life experience.
People assume that the introduction of the Financial Fair Play rules will automatically see an increase in the number of young, English players drafted into first teams to compensate for the fact that clubs cannot go and spend endless amounts of money buying players. However there are of course loopholes, such as: clubs being allowed to exclude from the FFP calculation the wages of players signed before June 2010 as long as they can show an improved trend in their accounts, artificial raising of income through sponsorship, non-football related income such as ownership of property and so on. Furthermore, as previously mentioned academies are filled with foreign talent, which means that even when youth team players get chances to progress into the first team, these are often youngsters bought from abroad. Even the Premier League 'home-grown' rules allow foreign players to be considered 'home-grown' as long as they have trained with the club for 3 seasons before their 21st birthday, encouraging the introduction of young players, but not necessarily young, English players.
The problems faced by England on the international stage will require a long process of repair. Grass roots coaching needs to be improved, the FA needs to work more closely with clubs to get support for international games and English players need to start showing that they are worth their premium. However, if the cultural attitude of players can be changed, as well clubs being convinced to allow their players to develop in a new system where they will mature as players an individuals, loaning players abroad may well be the future of English football and could provide a generation of well rounded young talent that could propel the national team to success.
Follow me: @krishm91
Follow LFE PPP Spain: @nextstarsnet
(A big thank you to Ronak Shah for the post suggestion!)
As an FA qualified coach, I've seen the inefficiencies of the grassroots system, both at club level and in the coaching process. Young players play large games, where they are 'told' what to do and where to stand without being explained the reasons behind this, rendering them incapable of making the intelligent movement we associate with continental players. FA Chairman, Greg Dyke has stated that a new £340m initiative has been set up to aid player development "through the structuring and implementation of the Elite Player Performance Plan". However, we have seen numerous generations of senior FA officials promise to revamp the youth system in England, without any success. Furthermore, even if a change finally does come, the fruits of this will not be evident for at least another decade. Even at European level, youth development has been dealt a blow with the brilliant NextGen series failing to secure funding, a competition which showed promise for English teams with Aston Villa winning the competition last year and Arsenal and Chelsea reaching the semi-finals.
Aside from the number of foreign players limiting chances of young English talent and poor grassroots development, the English media is often on a witch hunt during international games and we have seen the careers of players such as Robert Green affected by poor performances for the national team, causing players to be more skeptical about joining up with the national side. Furthermore, English players do seem to attract a premium, meaning that teams would rather look abroad for a player of similar quality, with a smaller price tag. This means that English players are often loaned out for the wrong reasons, to recoup finances. We have however seen successful use of the loan system by Premier League clubs in the last few years, with the likes of Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge getting regular game time and shining in their spells at Sunderland and Bolton respectively. Yet the question that I have been asking myself is why do we rarely see English players loaned abroad? We often state that clubs should go out of their way to promote the young English talent in their clubs, but are they obligated to? The clubs are an organisation in themselves and surely they will look to sign the best players at the cheapest price. If this means sacrificing a decent young English player for someone with better technical ability then surely that is their prerogative. Clubs won't sacrifice playing a young English talent if they are good enough to get into the first team, as we have seen for example with the integration of Raheem Sterling into the Liverpool squad over the last year. Perhaps players should take it upon themselves to push for loan moves abroad if they feel they are unlikely to get into the first team, which may particularly be the case at bigger teams.
Transfers of English players to foreign clubs are rare themselves, unless it comes in the form of a high profile signing, such as Beckham or Owen or if it is a player at the end of their career looking for a
One of the biggest reasons why these loan moves may not be so common is an issue that surpasses football. English is the international language of business and therefore taught from a very young age to students in countries across the world. However, we certainly do not put the same emphasis on other languages in our schools, with a choice of French, German or Spanish often being seen as secondary to the primary subjects of Maths, English and Science. Ironically, recent statistics would suggest that English is in fact the third most spoken (native) language (335 million approx) in the world after Mandarin (848 million approx) and Spanish (406 million approx). Perhaps we are slower to embrace foreign cultures, meaning that young players do not want to take a leap of faith even in loan moves abroad, unlike the young, foreign talent that fills English academies. Another external factor that causes a footballing problem may be that the strength of the Pound means that the contracts of English players are more expensive and foreign clubs are not willing to foot the wage bill for an English loanee.
There are footballing projects that specialise in bringing English talent to foreign countries such as League Football Education Player Placement Program, whose Placement Coordinatior is John Gontier who rightly told me that "English academies do a great job of training and nurturing young English talent. However having to compete against the best worldwide imports many good players get released." The project seeks to blend the inherent 'English grit' with the 'Spanish way' of playing in order to breed successful footballers. This is perhaps a view that Premier League clubs should consider and loaning their youth players to countries such as Spain may well not only provide youngsters with game time but also a new footballing outlook, not to mention invaluable life experience.
People assume that the introduction of the Financial Fair Play rules will automatically see an increase in the number of young, English players drafted into first teams to compensate for the fact that clubs cannot go and spend endless amounts of money buying players. However there are of course loopholes, such as: clubs being allowed to exclude from the FFP calculation the wages of players signed before June 2010 as long as they can show an improved trend in their accounts, artificial raising of income through sponsorship, non-football related income such as ownership of property and so on. Furthermore, as previously mentioned academies are filled with foreign talent, which means that even when youth team players get chances to progress into the first team, these are often youngsters bought from abroad. Even the Premier League 'home-grown' rules allow foreign players to be considered 'home-grown' as long as they have trained with the club for 3 seasons before their 21st birthday, encouraging the introduction of young players, but not necessarily young, English players.
Follow me: @krishm91
Follow LFE PPP Spain: @nextstarsnet
(A big thank you to Ronak Shah for the post suggestion!)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteA unique article and thoroughly well written piece on a greatly under appreciated aspect of the English game.
DeleteCheers mate!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSeems the only way to get messages like these across is to say it time and time again.
ReplyDelete