Roy Collins British Premier League
Stephen Hughes appears to have been adopted as the official martyr of those who believe that foreigners are limiting the chances of our brilliant young English players and in the process hindering the development of the national side. How ironic, then, that Hughes has been constantly linked with a move from foreign-laden Arsenal to Liverpool, where manager Grard Houllier is rebuilding the club in his own, continental image.
Hughes’s name is always thrown into the argument because he has a Premiership winner’s medal, a few England under-21 caps and because, quite frankly, there are so few players with which to instantiate the charge. Andy Myers has left Chelsea, claiming that he was too English for manager Gianluca Vialli, though an 800 000 move to Bradford does not suggest he is the new Bobby Moore.
Andy Sinton has left Spurs mouthing similar Anglo-Saxon insults about his first-team chances being limited by foreign players. But, at 33, he hardly represents the cream of English youth.
Michael Duberry, who has moved to Leeds after his failure to break up the French defensive axis of Frank Leboeuf and Marcel Desailly at Chelsea, is perhaps a more deserving case and a better example of how home-grown talent is being kept at bay by imported stars.
But before the argument that foreigners are having a destructive effect on British football can gain real ground, he and Hughes, and a few other mouthing the same complaints, must prove their Premiership class when given their chance.
Whatever the impact on home-grown talent, what is indisputable is that the flood of foreign players is showing no signs of abating. Astonishingly, of the 60-million so far spent this summer by Premiership clubs, 70%, or 42-million, has gone on foreign players.
So far, during the close season, only six players have made the move from the Nationwide League to the Premiership and of those, two – Chris Sutton and Danny Mills – were signed from clubs that were relegated from the top flight at the end of the season.
And outside Division One, only Hull and Luton managed to do any business with their betters, with the former selling goalkeeper Andy Oakes to Derby for 460 000, while the latter received 950 000 in total for the sale of Chris Wilmott and goalkeeper Kelvin Davis to Wimbledon.
Those sobering statistics threaten financial ruin for many of the lower division clubs, who, traditionally, have been indirectly subsidised by the bigger clubs through the selling of their promising youngsters to them. Premiership accountants, however, will tell you that they can no longer afford to pay the inflated sums demanded by English clubs for unproven kids. Experienced foreign players, particularly those from outside Western Europe, are less costly, and on the park, at least, less of a risk.
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson seemed to underline this point when he scoffed at the 6-million Aston Villa want to pay for Wolves’s Robbie Keane, almost twice what Chelsea paid for France’s World Cup skipper Didier Deschamps. Ferguson said that he would have been willing to pay about 500 000 to put Keane in United’s reserves for a couple of years.
Danny Mills of Charlton, sold to Leeds for 4-million, also cost more than Deschamps. And the 6-million which Newcastle manager Ruud Gullit paid for Ipswich’s Kieron Dyer seems to emphasise the premium placed on English players of potential above the reasonable, not to say cheap, fees paid for proven foreigners.
Few Premiership clubs are willing to invest so much on a domestic gamble. Liverpool’s decision to disband the Spice Boys and go foreign is significant not just in this aspect but in the move on the road to complete foreign domination of British football. At Anfield, they have had not just a British accent, but a distinctively Scouse one. With their sudden embracing of all things foreign, only at Manchester United and Leeds, of the leading clubs, is English the first language of the dressing room.
Gordon Taylor, CEOof the Professional Footballers’ Association, had hoped his members would be protected by new legislation on the rules governing the import of foreign players. In fact, the British Department for Education and Employment has made things easier by dropping high wages as one of the criteria for entry and removing the necessity for a 12-month review of work permits. This was designed to ensure that foreign stars were playing regularly for their clubs.
Taylor says: “The wages criteria was there to make sure that only top-quality players were coming in. Now that wages are not to be taken into account, it could easily lead to players coming in who are no better than home-grown players, merely cheaper.
“It could also lead to exploitation of players from Eastern Europe or Africa, who will not be paid the going rate for the job here.”
Football Association (FA)chair Geoff Thompson would like to limit the number of foreign players in each side to three. But now that Britain is part of Europe, it would not just be impossible to restrict those from other European Union countries but also illegal.
Taylor and Thompson have played the emotive card that, should Premiership clubs continue to pack their teams with foreign stars, England will be unable to field a half-decent national team. So no change there, then.
With the exception of 1966, England’s international team has been underperforming for 49 years, since Tom Finney, Stan Mortensen, Billy Wright and Alf Ramsey returned home from the country’s first World Cup entry in 1950, having been beaten 1-0 by the United States. England also managed to lose to the US in 1993.
So it is a bit much to blame the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Leboeuf for England’s inability to field a more successful side, though the debate has at least sharpened minds to accepting the real cause.
According to FAtechnical director Howard Wilkinson, England trails the rest of Europe in coaching qualifications. Only now are the five new coaches he has introduced at the FA working towards the professional licence which is recognised across Europe.
It is particularly strange to hear Bobby Robson, the former England manager, who has joined the FA as mentor to the new coaches, talking about the danger from the number of foreigners in our league, as he was one of the early exponents of importation when manager at Ipswich, bringing in Dutchmen Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen in the late 1970s.
But Robson insists that: “The Premiership is among the best leagues in Europe and is still producing good players.” Only, however, when the majority of clubs produce enough young players of quality to fill a Premiership squad will the import of ready- made foreigners lose its appeal.
Britain is still a long way from that scenario. Peter Taylor has insisted that most of his former charges are not yet ready for full international status.
This brings the argument full circle. The likes of Hughes may be among the best young players produced by this country, but they still fall a long way short of true international class.
Until they can prove that they have bridged the gap, the foreign stars playing alongside them and, in most cases, ahead of them in the Premiership will continue to be the first choice of managers.