"State of the Game: Premier League now less than one third English": http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24467371
I read the article, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who watches the Premier League and doesn't care how the English national team does.
Thanks for the link to the informative article. I have a question. Is there a consensus of what the top tier of soccer/football in a particular nation should provide? Is it to assemble the best team money can buy and present a superior product to fans? Or, is it to provide a venue to develop superior domestic players? It seems the goal most popular for fans of MLS or American fans in general is the latter. However, the EPL seems to be following the former trend, per this article at least. If the EPL has consistently been one of the top leagues, if not *the* top league, for much of the last decade, why then would MLS not try to eventually replicate this model? I.e., bringing in younger, top players as opposed to over-the-hill ones? It does not appear, from what I've read, that the caliber of domestic player the USA is going to develop under our current system in the next couple of decades is going to compare with the level that South American and Europe routinely produce, so I'm puzzled by the need to spend a generation or two trying to luck out with an American Messi. I realize that this is the EPL forum and that MLS have certain monetary restrictions, but I am keenly curious as to other peoples' takes on my initial question. Thanks!
There was a time, over a decade ago, when the BPL were signing the former best players who were slightly over the hill. Chelsea signed the likes of Vialli, Gullit and Weah or other prem signings like, Ravenelli, Litmanen and Klinnsman. It took time to build up the prestige to make it more attractive for the best players in the world and it was also helped by its teams advancing further in the Champions League(which will be a stumbling block for the MLS).
For all the foreigners we have in our domestic league it's the Germans who are world champions and the English who've gone out in the Group Stages! Personally think it's about time we started restricting foreign players in our domestic league. I certainly wouldn't be annoyed if Spurs went down that route.
I wouldn't mind Spurs doing that either. We would laugh while finish lower and lower down the table. Has anyone in England ever considered that maybe the problem isn't that you don't have enough players in the Premier League, but that you don't have any players in foreign leagues? The Germans have players with experience in the Bundesliga, La Liga, and the Premier League, as do most other quality national team sides. Lowering the quality of the Premier League (the result of restricting foreigners) is not going to raise the quality of the England side. How is an Englishman, who is only good enough for the Championship today, going to make England better if we force EPL teams to hire him over better quality foreigners?
I couldn't care less. Rather finish lower down the league with more local players in the side than higher up with a load of Carlos Kickaball and Johnny Foreigner mercenaries. Who are going to go in strike, refuse to play and are only waiting for Real Madrid to come calling. The bottom line is, that we're not going to win the league anyway. It isn't realistic, nor is it possible. We'd need to spend a fortune to do that, FFP doesn't allow us because we don't have enough fans to generate the money, and we don't have enough fans because the glory-hunters only wanna support the teams winning every season. Forget about 4th place, it's overrated. I've got ten times the respect for a club like Athletic Bilbao than any of the generic superclubs just throwing money at players to win trophies like the top clubs in England & Spain. At least they have an identity and are a source of local pride. It's the English Premier League, and what is it really? The top clubs are foreign ownered, with foreign players, managers and fans, sponsored by foreign companies. Arsenal have more fans in Nigeria than England ffs. It's only my personal view. Had enough of being charged extortionate ticket prices to watch a load of foreigners with no pride whatsoever in the club who just wanna showcase their talents.
Wikipedia says Nigeria has 3.29 times as many people as England, so that doesn't tell you whether a greater percentage of English or Nigerian people are fans of Arsenal.
Doesn't really matter, does it? Doesn't change any of what I've said above. Charging local fans a fortune to watch foreign players who couldn't give a toss about a Tottenham. I can't really feel pride in that. We're just an ordinary, generic modern day football club, we're not at all representative of London. Different if these players were writing history for the club, but they aren't, are they? Personally, I'd feel more pride following a club like Bilbao than anything out the Premier League. Where's the pride in finishing 4th, 5th, 6th etc with a load of foreigners?
If you want to support a club with mostly English players I would think you could find that in lower levels of English soccer. In the USA our leagues have drafts and not many professional players are playing in the area they grew up.
So you're advocating fans switching allegiances? Clubs fielding too many non-local and foreign players is only one of the reasons why I've not renewed my season ticket. - too expensive tickets/poor value for money - predictability and lack of competitiveness within football. - dislike for my club's owners, and the way they run the club. - the state of English football full stop. Are some other reasons. I still love football, watch international and enjoyed the World Cup, but club football I'm not really interested in now.
I'm not sure how to respond. Clubs want to succeed and don't care about the nationality of their players unless the club is in a league with a foreign player limit. If "clubs fielding too many non-local and foreign players is only one of the reasons why I've not renewed my season ticket," then how would you have felt if you were a fan of the Los Angeles Galaxy when they signed Beckham? I like that my favorite MLS club, the Red Bulls has in recent years had players from many countries including England, France, Estonia, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Japan, Colombia, Spain, Costa Rica, Cameroon, Uganda, and Senegal.
The numbers get worse as you focus on the sides at the top of the table. Instead of 1/3rd, it's more like 1/4th. I was actually looking up the composition of squads players in the top 7 La Liga sides just today and also looked up the top 7 English sides. Here's what I found, copy/pasting from a post I made in the Real Madrid forum: Club: Foreign Players / Total Squad The Premier League of Big Squads of Foreigners In England (PLoBSoFiE; Pronounced "Plob-so-fee"; Usage: "Are you a fan of the PLoBSoFiE?"): Chelsea: 24/28 = 86% Arsenal: 22/28 = 79% Everton: 16/21 = 78% Man City 23/29 = 74% Liverpool 19/28 = 68% Tottenham: 21/31 = 68% Man United: 16/28 = 57% Total foreign player composition: 141/193 = 73% Average Squad Size: 28 By comparison, here are the numbers for... Spanish La Liga: Atletico: 15/23 = 65% Barcelona: 13/24 = 54% Sevilla FC: 16/31 = 52% Real Madrid: 12/23 = 52% Villarreal: 12/27 = 44% Real Sociedad: 7/26 = 27% Athletic Bilbao: 1/27 = 4% Total foreign player composition: 76/177 = 42% Average Squad Size: 25 Chelsea, City, Arsenal and Tottenham have as many foreigners in their squads as the total squad sizes of Real, Barca and Atletico.
@Phoenix Rising How did you decided on club squad sizes? I would think over the course of the whole season Everton used more than 21 players.
Just using the info that Transfermarkt.com currently has for each clubs' squad sizes. I expect the numbers to change when the transfer window is shut.
Clubs want to succeed, but realistically very few clubs can succeed. For most clubs, it just isn't possible. My club are one of these clubs. We might import foreign players, but where has it got us? No closer to the top clubs than before we started importing them en-masse. In this futile hunt for 'success' most clubs (even the top clubs) have completely lost their identity. They're all pretty generic. For me, that's a big reason why I've lost interest in domestic football.
I wouldn't be able to answer that since it's the only league I watch regularly, so can't say what goes on in other league worldwide.
Restricting foreign players will only make the English NT worse. It's a ridiculous argument, and thinking people in football know this. If you want English players to improve, lowering the quality of the league is the exact opposite of what you want to happen.
Nobody cares if it's 10% English as long as it's exciting and competitive. If you limit foreigners in the EPL it would hurt English players because They are playing lower quality of players. England is a poor team because of their manager who employs poor tactics and they are in between generations. Usually England performs at the international level where they are meant to be QFs.
The way I see it the Premier League is an international league showcasing (most of) the worlds best talent, so at 32.26% we are already way over-represented. It's pretty arrogant for the FA etc to think that out of all the countries in the world we should be producing a third or more of the best players. The reason why Germany, Italy & Spain have so many homegrown players in their top divisions is purely because (outside of the big teams) they don't have the money Premiership teams do, it's also the reason why their leagues are less competitive from top to bottom. The main problem that our national team has is that out of all the players that we do produce and who play in the Premiership, none of them are anything like world class.
Hit the nail on the head. To hear the commentators say Rooney is still "world class" at this WC was a farce. He has declined since his peak year of 09/10.
who cares...i would have more foreigners and less English if it's going to make the league better. Do I want less foreigners and worse football, nope!