Half of the eight teams remaining in the UEFA Champions League come from just one league – the Premiership. Truly, for it to happen twice in a row, signals a change in Europe’s balance of power.
As this threatens to become an annual occurrence, European and world football’s powers are alarmed by a perceived imbalance and seem desperate to curb the rising tide of English success, especially in view of the clean sweep by English clubs over their Italian rivals in the previous round of Europe’s premier competition.
If FIFA president Sepp Blatter manages to persuade the European Union to let him implement his much talked about ‘6+5’ directive, the era of supremacy of England’s top clubs in Europe will almost certainly be under threat.
The proposal is designed to limit the number of foreign players in a team to five, because he feels there is a lack of home-grown players in the English game. Blatter is confident the system will be implemented to combat what he perceives to be the unhealthy domination of the Premiership. With the ‘6+5’ idea seemingly gathering momentum, it looks as if in three years’ time managers of English teams will have to find six English players to compete against Italian, Spanish and German teams, all of whom will have at least six home-grown players of their own.
The Arsenal team that Wenger fielded at the Stadio Olimpico against Roma in the second leg of the first knock-out stage to start the match, included not one English player. Rafael Benitez’ Liverpool boasted just two Englishmen against Real Madrid, Chelsea had three on the pitch against Juventus and the Manchester United team that got past Inter, included four players born in the club’s country of origin.
With the ‘6+5’ ruling now visible on the horizon, the biggest problem facing those in charge of the big four Premier League clubs is a serious dearth of home-grown talent. Even the clubs outside the top four Premier League are stuffed with imports from all four corners of the globe. Modestly-funded sides such as Bolton, WBA, Portsmouth or Wigan Athletic often turn out teams with six, seven or even eight foreigners. There is no room for domestic talent to develop, besides that there is no talent breaking through, barring Arsenal’s Theo Walcott. FA development chief Trevor Brooking has been warning for some time now that he has never known the quality of young English players to be so poor.
There is little doubt that the ‘6+5’ rule would favour Italian and Spanish clubs at the moment. Serie A clubs outside the top four (Inter, Juventus, Milan and Roma) average just 3.25 foreigners in their starting eleven.
Even Milan, Juventus, Roma and Fiorentina usually have less than six stranieri in their side at kick-off. With the exception of Inter, the Italian top flight is already operating within FIFA’s ‘6+5’ rule.
It is here that the Italians might have the edge. The peninsula is bursting with youthful talent and if FIFA get their way, the likes of Sebastian Giovinco, Antonio Nocerino, Marco Motta, Davide Santon, Claudio Marchisio or Robert Acquafresca will suddenly become much hotter properties as Milan, Inter, Juventus or Roma try to fill their six native player spots with the nest home-grown talent available.
Where are their English equivalents? They are probably sitting at home playing on their Playstations.
From an English perspective, it is quite irritating to see the likes of Blatter and his UEFA counterpart, Michel Platini feverishly trying to come up with ways of curbing the Premier League’s success. It begs the obvious question – where was the impetus and desire to take steps to redress the balance when Spanish and Italian clubs were dominating European club football? There was no suggestion then, from football’s governing bodies, that Spain’s Liga or Italy’s Serie A were too powerful. What there was instead was a recognition within England that for their clubs to compete again with the best of Italy and Spain, things needed to change domestically.
In many respects, English football has reinvented itself in recent years, and the seeds sown in 1992, with the formation of the Premiership, are bearing fruit now.So should the Premiership be penalised for its success by FIFA or UEFA?
One can certainly argue against some aspects of the Premier League, such as the non-existent vetting of owners both foreign and domestic, or the absurd situation in which the team finishing bottom of the division is guaranteed more prize money than the European champions. But the market forces cannot be denied and they have turned England into a juggernaut.
The billionaire giants of the Premier League may be celebrating their status as the top European football superpower at the moment but, at some point in the next couple of years, English football might need to become a little more English again.