The downward plight of English football

Surely no one can be surprised at today's news that English players account for about one third of playing minutes in the Premier League.

The question, I guess, is: does it matter?

Personally I think it does matter. It can't be right that an ENGLISH League has:

• more foreign players than home players
• foreign owners
• foreign managers

What is English about the English Premier League?

The grounds and the referees.

And even on the subject of grounds, "they" came up with some bright idea of playing a "39th" game abroad a few years ago!

And on referees, some called for Pierluigi Collina to take the whistle in English games a few years ago.

It seems that nothing is sacrosanct in the modern times of global shrinkage.

The problems are:

• The England team has about 75 players to pick from - and yes, the success of the England team does matter in the long run.
• Nearly all the money in the game goes to players, so that's 2/3 of a huge amount of money going OUT of England in the long run (not good for the economy).
• Every bubble bursts in the end.
• There is no foundation to the short-termism that plagues the English game.

What can be done about it?

I'm no lawyer so I don't know what laws are in place or would be broken to try and fix this. 

• Player quotas have been mentioned, but sound unlikely in the European Union (despite plenty of non-European players in the league).
• I guess we can't insist on home ownership.
• Perhaps we need UEFA or FIFA to put in place some rules that mean that leagues are representative of the country.

For the moment though, I weep at the downward plight of English football.