It was interesting to read Michael Caruana’s negative take on the huge achievements of English club sides in recent seasons in the UEFA Champions League (TMID, 13 May). He puts this success down to the influence of foreign players and coaches in the English game.

I would argue that the discrepancy between the success of the English national team and English club sides is not due to a lack of quality professional English players. England, with 92 professional clubs, has probably the highest number of home-grown professional footballers in the world.

I would suggest that the discrepancy is largely due to the structure of the English game. Membership of the board of The Football Association is heavily weighted in favour of the amateur leagues (or “grass-roots” football). The amateur mentality regrettably reflects itself in the way the national team is run. By stark contrast, the club sides are run to the highest professional standards. The challenge is to transfer the professional mentality of a club structure to the corridors of the archaic Football Association.

It is worth pointing out that no European country can match England’s success in terms of producing competitive teams from so many different sources. The list of European Cup finalists from England are: Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Leeds Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea. This list was formed largely during an era of few foreigners in the English game.

Finally, I would like to provide a list of probable and possible participants in the up-coming UEFA Champions League Final. This may give Mr Caruana cause to reflect again on his claim that “English clubs are no longer capable of producing valuable English players”: Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown, Owen Hargreaves, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge, Joe Cole, Frank Lampard and Shaun Wright-Philips.

Mark Grima

St Julian’s