By Andrew Warshaw
October 9 – New English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke had another dig at the influx of foreign players in English football today and said the importance of a successful national team should not be under-estimated.
As the final crucial series of World Cup qualifiers loomed, Dyke expressed concerns about the lack of English players breaking in to the top flight, saying 70% of those starting top-flight matches last season were from overseas.
Dyke, who took over as chairman in July, believes action is needed to address what he has already described as a “frightening trend”.
“The truth is we have become a finishing school for the rest of the world at the expense of our own players,” Dyke said.
“I care passionately about two things. I want England to win and I do believe that English kids should have the best opportunity to play at the highest level. If there are barriers to that either when they are very small because we’re not teaching them the right skills or later because they are getting into an academy system where it is quite difficult to get into the first-team, we need to look at what we can do.
“We should sit here and say ‘we believe that English kids should have the right, if they have got the talent, to play in the highest level in this country and abroad’.”
Meanwhile, Dyke felt it was now “certain” the 2022 Qatar World Cup would be moved from the summer months after FIFA announced it was setting up a Task Force to come up with the best alternative date.
“Anyone who has ever been to Qatar in the summer, as I have, knows you can’t hold a football tournament there,” he said. “Even if you have air-conditioned stadium, how do the fans get in and get out? You go to these big tournaments and you can queue for an hour – doing that in Qatar in the summer would be very dangerous.”
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