You won’t hear me arguing for restraint of trade very often, but in football’s case I think there are sound sporting reasons for a quota on imported players. I’m blogging about it – and the amazing news, courtesy of m’old defensive partner Edinburgh Mike (thanks Mike!) that there were more Scottish players than English turning out in the Champions League this week, over on GU’s absurdly popular Sports blog…


COMMENTS / 2 COMMENTS

But what do you think this says for a: coaching in England and b: the salary expectations and thus cost (aka naked greed) of English footballers? Careful you don’t kill the patient – British football – by picking the wrong cure.

Lloyd thought this on Dec 02 07 at 7:41 pm

On coaching – at the top level, it tells me first team coaches are under terrible pressure to just get results. I don’t necessarily think that coaching in England, especially of young players, is too dreadful, at least not if you look at youth team results over the years. Football journalists are fond of pointing at the terrible experiences their sons have while playing on a full-size pitch in a park, but promising players seem to be scouted early on and brought on through the ranks very efficiently. It’s when they need first team experience that things go wrong. As for greed… well, yes, and their use of that money sucks too, but you could argue they’re only taking their share of a pot inflated by football’s amazing ability to part fans from their money. Football went this way the moment clubs started becoming listed companies and (later) being bought by hugely wealthy businessmen. The only way to change that would be fan trust ownership… but that’s another post :)

Neil McIntosh thought this on Dec 04 07 at 8:16 am

SPEAK / ADD YOUR COMMENT
Comments are moderated. I'll delete unpleasantness. Email me if you spot a comment that crosses the line.

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Return to Top