Greg Dyke made some interesting points about English football last week. A major concern must be the recent failures of English sides in tournaments and the apparent lack of young English players coming through. Mr Dyke mentioned that the FA would be looking at several areas, including quotas over the coming months. Here is what I think we should do: ⢠Quotas â I appreciate that applying a quota rule to our leagues would contravene European law, but I think itâs essential. Our young talent is being blocked by cheap foreign imports. I would implement a rule saying that at least 6 players in the starting XI of each game must be qualified to play for England. The rule to be relaxed for Welsh sides to be English or Welsh. This would be applied to all English leagues and domestic cup competitions). ⢠Regard the U21, U20 tournaments as being important to the development of our young players and take the strongest team possible ⢠All England teams (all age groups) to play in a similar way ⢠Reduce the size of the Premier League to 18 ( at the same time restructure League 2 and the Conference to be League 2 North and South) ⢠Implement a mid-winter break (and ban teams from playing overseas friendlies during that break) ⢠Restrict the number of overseas players entering our Academies (max of 2 per club per age group) ⢠Coaching emphasis on youngsters to concentrate on technical skills ⢠Change of culture in identifying good young players which currently seems to be about size, pace and power (Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are not big!!) ⢠Small sided games/pitches to be extended to older age groups - 13-14 years. This keeps the emphasis on technique, not about who can kick it the furthest. ⢠Youth coaches to be encouraged to play ALL kids not just the best ones (you donât get better by sitting on the bench). ⢠Winning is not the be all and end all at that age â more important to teach kids how to play and enjoy it ⢠More Premiership money to be ploughed into grass roots youth football â perhaps a FA levy which the FA could distribute to youth set ups that meet itâs youth policy criteria ⢠Work with the Government to enhance school sports ⢠Train our coaches better, including making senior badges harder to achieve
Easy solution to all this put a cap on transfer fees as every single British based player costs about 25% more than their equivalent overseas counterpart. The FA are blind to the fact that clubs now are businesses for the most run by foreign business men who don't give a flying rats ass about the England national team and, will do things on the cheap where possible. Now we have these FFP rules which will only mean more foreign players coming to the PL and the British players, unless they are very very good will still not get a chance. The FA tried to address this problem by forcing teams to put a quota of British players in their squads, all this did was increase the price yet again of British players so problem solved again by the brilliant FA. The FA bleat about grass roots football and the lack of funding for it and for referees and coaches, they do all this while creaming off their cut (which won't be small) for just sitting on their arses doing jack. The England team is primarily based around London and the North West teams, which is fair enough as that is where the successful teams are based so, why should Sunderland or any other team outside the top 7 or so clubs bother? our players won't get into the England team unless there is a drastic shortage of players from those top clubs. Rickie Lambert is a prime example of this 2 games 2 goals and yet, if Welbeck had not got a yellow card was going to be dropped to the bench for the next game (apparently). In short the FA should look closer to home and get their house in order first (not holding my breath), then have a pop at the top teams for not having British players (again not holding my breath) but, they won't do that because they a scared of the top teams and their influence so they have a pop at the lesser clubs.
Kidnap the spanish team and waterboard them until they agree to plastic surgery to look like our 'golden generation' 11. On a serious note we need a manager who isn't an FA yes man and be prepared to pick players on form rather than reputation. And a quota of domestic players in a starting 11 wouldnt hurt but some of the numbers being quoted are ridiculous.
Make the basic coaching badge courses free or at least reduce the price massively. It'll cost the average budding coach 440 quid to set them up at a level 2, this includes FA first aid, FA Safeguard of children and FA Welfare Officers Workshop. All important courses if you want to give a young'un the best chance. That's a lot of money just to get up and running. The more coaches at grassroot level the better I think.
