On one hand I applaud the EPL for not being dominated by two teams like La Liga for example. On the other hand, any English person who flaunts the EPL's CL dominance should be smacked. You have nothing to gloat about...combined the first 11's of Arsenal/Chelsea/Man U don't even have 11 domestic players on the field.
the value of the pound compared to the Euro has dropped a lot since this financial crisis, and England is increasing its taxes on its higher earners. These factors could lead to European competitions developing more parody. But there are natural flows of dominance between the leagues in Europe, there is no need to punish a league for success, its up to the other leagues to improve. Also a bit of the English dominance could just be to the format of playing over two legs favouring their style of play
It seems like no one wants to put themselves in that English's kids shoes who doesn't the chance he deserves cause some mediocore foriegn who probley isn't even that much better is taking up all his time. Sure having top class foriegns in your league is great, but at some point its becomes too much, like England last season 67% foriegn ratio, that is way to much. Don't expect any English kid to replace Gerrard or Terry on there club's that won't ever happen any more and its disgraceful.
I guess that explains why only countries with strong domestic leagues and good youth development are consistent top football nations.
All that proves is that modern day football fans are more interested in results than in preserving the culture of their football club and the role that said club plays in society. That I agree is a sad thing. It's the shallowness and short sightedness of the new generation of football fans that bugs me.
What English kid isn't getting the chance he deserves? England has 5 leagues x 20 teams each x ~30 player squads = 3000 professional players (not counting the reserves/juniors). The PL has a fairly high foreigner content, but that leaves 4 other leagues (in England alone!) for that poor English kid to excel in. (of course, he could always move to another country to play if things got really bad for him).
It is one of the few correct things he stated. The drop in the pound has seriously implications for transfer fees and player wages that only hurt British clubs. The change in the tax rate compounds the issue. It is making signing the best players far more costly and reducing the attractiveness of the Premiership to foreign players (from a financial perspective). The advantage has shifted to clubs using the euro which will only serve to close the gap between the leagues if it continues.
One of those English clubs disagrees with you. Today I read an interview with the newly appointed Liverpool director of youth development, Piet Hamberg, a Dutchman, in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. They have a new policy in place where they completely focus on local and regional talent. He calls the contracting of very young foreign players immoral, but also pointless, because in his view a quality youth development programme guarantees sufficient output of talent even when you only source locally and regionally. On an unrelated note, he's already sacked five Liverpool youth coaches because they've not had enough talent coming through since the Gerrard generation. The latter points at something we already knew: there are heaps of foreign youngsters at premiership youth academies but very few make it to the highest level. So even when you don't take moral issue with contracting foreign youngsters, I don't see how you can deny that the system clearly isn't working. In short, it's a waste of money, which explains the new Liverpool youth development strategy. Hamberg knows what he's talking about. He was previously in charge of the Grasshoppers youth academy where he started ten years ago. Four of the players of this youth academy now play for the Swiss national team, five others for the Swiss under 21s, and a further six play professionally at the highest Swiss level.
He isn't disagreeing with me -- all he's saying is that Liverpool should do just fine going with only local talent. He isn't saying that there's a whole bunch of poor neglected Liverpool youth who don't get a chance to play because of the foreigners. btw, doing 'just fine' is different from seeking out the best talent on the planet and bringing them to Liverpool. I personally hope that Liverpool sticks with 'just fine' players and leaves the extradinary players to other teams. Umm, and shouldn't the person developing local, youth talent for Liverpool be local? Why did Liverpool get a Dutchman for that job?
Sigh. Just reread that previous post of mine again. It's bloody ironic that even when the big premiership clubs are preparing for the 6+5 rule its (plastic) fans are still denying the relevance of said rule.
Not really. In the US, you can always find a politician to agree with any proposition that discriminates against a minority group -- homosexuals, foreigners, etc -- because the politicians can count and they are supported by the people who would like that group to be discriminated against. That doesn't mean that discrimination is a good thing, though. Same deal here. I'm sure that you could find people in England who'd like to legislate that all youth directors for PL clubs must be English, and that all bus drivers be English, and all grounds-keepers must be English, and on and on. It's just a matter of ginning up enough support for the idea that being a youth director is a 'special' job.
If racism and nationalism are part of a football club's culture, then that club needs closing down. I have a dream that one day a footballer will be judged by his ability, not by his passport.
Right now that what exactly European clubs do, its up to the rest of the world to grow up and stop moving backwards. You might want to tell that to the nations that do that exact thing, NOT EUROPEAN ones. Everyone wants to join Western culture yet at the same time destroy it.
Oh FFS and you're telling me this as an Englishman? You should know better. The local pride aspect is what has made football the biggest sport in Europe, the entertainment factor of the actual game of football is just one part of it. It's the local pride aspect that guarantees the fans' lifelong loyalty to a club, not short term success or the attractions of the twentieth overseas player that tries his luck at your club before quickly moving on for more money. It's clubs who are tightly knit with their local community, not just in football matters but in socio-cultural matters that have staying power and you know it. Anyway I don't know why we're even discussing this seeing that even the likes of Liverpool acknowledge this. Unless you think you know better than the Liverpool management of course.
If you think this is about racism and nationalism then you're seriously paranoid. Racism? Do you think everybody in England is white and blue-eyed and has ancestors dating back to King George? Where local players come from isn't the issue, let alone their parents or grandparents. If you seriously can't see what the importance is for say the Anfield community, not the most wealthy of communities even in Liverpool I might add, of seeing how one of theirs can make it to the starting XI of their local pride, then I have to conclude that much of what the attraction of club football is completely escapes you. Don't worry though you're not alone, you in fact are exemplary to the new generation of football fans, congratulations!
Local pride, not national pride. A player can move from own town to represent another, he can't do the same with a country. 6+5 might be fair when a player can switch countries. If they implement this rule, you could form a team of players who haven't lived within a thousand miles of your town, would that be local pride? The same Liverpool management that bought Robbie Keane, only to sell him for a massive loss months later? I'd imagine if Liverpool wanted 6+5 it's because it would hobble Arsenal and Chelsea. Of course this is the same Liverpool who won their first league title with a team full of Scotsmen.
Combination of racism and protectionism and jingoism (actually a whole bunch of -ism's!). There's nothing stopping Ajax of creating a team made up of players who were born with 10 miles of their stadium, now is there? Go for it. All that local pride. Same with Liverpool. I have no problem with that at all. If that's what that team's fans want, then more power to them. Remind me again, what is 6+5 for? Oh yes, you want to make everyone else have to do that too.
Liverpool have sacked Hamburg by the way. If 6+5 was really about local players, as in from the community, then why isn't it just worded like the UEFA rules currently are, which have specific quotas for players that were developed by the club?
For your information, the Ajax crowd despises their club's management and a big part of that is that they these days prefer to buy even veterans from other Dutch clubs to giving their own youth academy players a chance. Don't take my word for it. Check the Ajax forums. Ever since Ajax turned into a buying club things have gone downhill there, and that's including in the estimation of its own fans let alone the rest of the country. Ajax is one of the least liked clubs in the Netherlands and that's little to do with their success as they haven't had any for the past six years. People in leagues like the Netherlands are under no illusion that they can keep up with the big clubs or big leagues in general - but there's the miracle, they don't give a shite as domestic attendance records prove. And it's precisely in those allegedly lowly leagues where local identity and football culture is increasingly important. On that note, when's the last time you visited a European football game then, and I mean a proper one, not a bigged up CL or premiership event? In what position are you exactly to comment on this?
What position do I have to comment on a plan to keep people from being able to work based on their ethnic origin? The usual dislike of discrimination, I suppose. I don't really see it as a soccer thing, you see....people can always think of ways to rationalize the things they do.
Although your comments can be misconstrued as being borderline neo-Nazi (if twisted around in the proper fashion, that is), I still find myself agreeing with the principles of what you're arguing for. Just a tip, though, that in future you should probably choose a better wording of your thoughts as lines like "preserving the culture" are usually associated with white supremacy, although it's clear that in this case you did not mean that at all