‘Do not blame our clubs for a lifetime of failure by the England team’

December 1, 2007

The national side have not got to a leading final since 1966, but the fault lies elsewhere, the Premier League’s chief executive insists

Matt Dickinson, Chief Sports Correspondent

In an office in London this week, Richard Scudamore turned to a set of statistics. “Did you know,” he asked, “that 246 Englishmen played in the top division last season compared to 128 in 1992?” Strong evidence, the Premier League chief executive insisted, that whatever anyone says about a foreign invasion, the England head coach has more than enough resources to shape a half-decent national team. “I don’t believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with the top players in this country,” Scudamore said.

Also this week, Michel Platini sat in an office in Switzerland with his own sheet of paper. It revealed that while 94 French players are registered to play for various clubs in the Champions League, England has only 45 – and most of them are reserves. “It is difficult to have a very good national team, ah?” the Uefa president asked, rhetorically. “Something is not so correct here.”

So who is right? Whose statistics are more revealing? After ten days of inquest into England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008, most of us would probably conclude that a good manager could make a decent England team out of this generation (one point to Scudamore), but we also believe that our game does not produce nearly enough players blessed with flair and technique – which is Platini’s point exactly.

Given England’s failure to reach a single World Cup or European Championship final in 41 years, it is Platini’s argument that should probably strike us as the most profound and Scudamore does concede that there is something wrong with the production line. But, in a vigorous defence of an organisation that has been derided as the “Greed is Good League”, he argues that the problems start way below his organisation. The clubs, he argues, aspire to turn out talented Englishmen by the dozen.

“They are out there desperately seeking the golden nugget that is local, home-grown talent,” he said. “Not only does it save them a fortune, but they are great to have. [Jamie] Carragher and [Steven] Gerrard at Liverpool. [John] Terry at Chelsea. They spend huge money on the academies and they are absolutely committed to finding that local talent. The problem is, the clubs aren’t responsible for the whole process.

“Government decides how much sport is played by young people and then my friends down the road at the FA take responsibility for 99.9 per cent of the football that is played in this country. Which makes it hard for me to sit here in my office and accept we are responsible. We are responsible for a small piece of the pie.”

It is not the Premier League’s fault, in other words, but that of the FA and the government. In which case we could be waiting a long time for anything to change, let alone improve.

Sir Trevor Brooking, the director of football development, as good as admitted the FA’s impotence on these pages yesterday. And if we are reliant on Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, to knock heads together, we may as well lock up the gates and give up.

“If I was to take off my Premier League hat and put on my sports nut hat, and dad’s hat, I certainly don’t believe as a country we are going about things the right way,” Scudamore said.

“As a country we are interested in sport, but I’m not sure we take sport seriously enough. At government level, as a nation. In Australia, in schools they play an hour and a half of sport every day. It’s part of their national curriculum – mandatory. That does not happen here. The French, by law, pretty much have a tennis court in every village.

“A governing body can’t change the culture of sport in this country. The FA and the Premier League can take part in the debate, but it’s the Government that needs to push the changes through. We create a talisman effect. We get people interested in sport, create aspirations for young people who see the spoils that can come with success as a footballer. There’s a huge amount of gold dust when it comes to inspiring people. But our remit ends at academy and youth development level.”

The success of the Premier League is unarguable, but its free-market values are thought by many to be incompatible with a strong national team. To which Scudamore responds: “When was the golden period when we qualified for everything? We haven’t had one. And where is the logic that says foreign players have harmed the development of English talent? We can’t see it.”

His organisation’s views about quotas “dumbing down” the quality of players are well known and, in any case, the reality is that restrictions on foreign imports will not happen. So do we simply carry on as we are?

Scudamore accepts that improvements can be made to the academies, although he also points out that 85 per cent of 16 to 18-year-old scholars are English. Whether they are the ones who can dribble like Cristiano Ronaldo will have to be seen over time.

It hardly helps that something as important as youth development is one of the areas of deadlock between the FA and the Premier League, with Scudamore revealing lingering tension. “History says they are called the governing body with a capital G and capital B,” he said. “We will go into partnership with them, but it has to be an adult partnership. It can’t just be one lot telling the other lot what to do and how to do it.” In that light, it will be interesting to hear how the FA reacts to his suggestion to cut the committee clutter around the next England head coach. “They [the FA] need to find a manager who knows what he wants, who has the right philosophy, and then let him have what he wants,” he said. “Don’t second-guess him. Don’t mess with him. Don’t get in his way. Don’t create a circus around him.

“The fact is that if they get the England appointment right and the England set-up right, there is nothing to stop us succeeding.”

As another Barclays Premier League weekend plays out to packed houses and bumper audiences, such optimism may come easily to Scudamore Less so, one suspects, to Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive.