Controversial former Newcastle United star Joey Barton has claimed that the Premier League is destroying English football.
Premier League clubs tend to focus on fielding the best possible sides in their games and as a result of this; there are many teams which field few English players.
Barton has now called on Premier League clubs to follow their Rugby and Cricket counterparts and start placing emphasis on nurturing local talent.
Barton feels that the Premier League is destroying the quality of English football. While speaking on the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast, he said, “The Premier League is killing English football because not enough English talent is getting opportunities.
“When they do, they do showcase it, but not enough English talent or English coaches are getting opportunities. So it is killing the game. Whether or not you like that, that’s the reality.
“What we should start doing is what we do in rugby. Say, ‘OK we’re going to bring these kids in, we’re going to bring these foreigners in’ and start amalgamating them and making them available for the England national team.
“Do what other countries have done, what France have done really well over the years with players from the islands and the colonies and bring them in. That’s the only way around it. It happens in rugby union, it happens in cricket, we’ve got about 59 South Africans!
“The players are clearly going to be good because they’re playing for Premier League clubs, some of these young kids that Chelsea sign at 17.
“It’s like a [Cesc] Fabregas [who came to England at 16]. Why didn’t we just say, ‘right, we’ll have him’. We’d pretty quickly just go, ‘yeah, he’s one of the lads, he’s English’.
“It would give us a better chance of winning something than we’ve got currently, which is a shrinking selection pool of real genuine quality.”
Though the England national team is expected to qualify for the World Cup in Russia with ease, a lot has been said over their overall quality, considering that the Three Lions have not won a major tournament since 1966 when they lifted the World Cup.
