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PARLIAMENTARY REPORT
23 January 2008
Liberal Democrats
speak at Westminster Hall debate on Overseas Footballers
Liberal Democrat John Leech said that it is the responsibility of Football Authorities rather than the Government to develop home grown talent and recommended several ways in which this could be achieved.
Mr Leech said:
“Three positive steps could be taken. I accept the point that it is not Government’s role to do this, but I think that it is the role of the football authorities to examine ways in which we can ensure that home-grown talent can still come through in the future. First, we should scrap the transfer window. I understand why it was brought in. It was brought in to protect the interests of smaller clubs, but it simply does not. People at clubs outside the premiership will say that the transfer window does not work. The transfer window means that transfers become more of a risk for clubs and they are looking for instant impact from the signings that they make in the transfer windows. Premiership teams obviously do not want to sell their players to their rivals, so teams are forced to buy either players from lower divisions or foreign players with a proven track record in the top flight of football, so obviously clubs are more likely to go for the foreign imports who have a proven track record.”
“Secondly, rather than trying to restrict foreign imports, we should have a high minimum percentage quota for home-grown talent in the academies to ensure that if clubs want to take lots of good young talent from abroad, they still have to take a very significant number of home-grown players in their academies and lower teams, so that those players have the opportunity to flourish in big teams.”
“Thirdly, we should consider levelling the playing field on the rules about transfers. Buying players from other English clubs almost always requires a massive outlay of cash, whereas if clubs buy players from the continent, they are often able to spread the payments over a much longer period. Because clubs are often strapped for cash, that is a far more attractive option. Surely that inequity cannot continue. A proper level playing field is needed so that it is not cheaper in the short term to buy players from abroad than it is to buy players from other English clubs.”
Click here to read John Leech’s speech in full
Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Minister Richard Younger-Ross also spoke in the debate, saying that the level of support for coaching given at a community level was to blame for English players not being able to get first team in the Premiership.
Mr Younger-Ross said:
“Concentrating on the subject of the debate, I have some concerns. The idea that foreign footballers are the problem of English football is dangerous and misleading. English teams have always relied on foreign footballers. As I said, I am an Arsenal fan and I remember a plethora of Irishmen - Brady and others - playing for the Arsenal. I also remember a plethora of Scots playing for the Arsenal and, of course, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the famous Georgie Best, who played for Manchester United. Non-English players have always been there.”
“Provided a foreign player meets the immigration requirements and can get a work permit, there is nothing to stop them coming to work here. If they can get an immigration visa to come here, why should they not be allowed to play? Why should they be told that they are restricted in the number of places in a team that they can compete for? One would not allow that to happen in any other industry. One would not say, “Oh, we have x number of Members of Parliament. This is the British Parliament, therefore we will restrict it to the number of people who have been born and brought up here.” There are restrictions on who can stand for Parliament, yes, but they are not essentially to do with where a person is born. The danger with the home-grown players rules is that that is what will happen and restrictions will be introduced.”
“A lot of money is currently put into the sport; £40 million comes from premier league clubs for their academies and £9.3 million comes from the premier league itself. The problem comes with the way that the Football Association has run its youth training, as was alluded to earlier. The problem comes with the support that we give to the community clubs, the coaching and the investment in coaching in the UK, rather than at the higher level.”
“Ultimately, a player will rise to the highest level of competition that they can and if they are not good enough to play against internationals, they will not get to the top of the premier league. If one looks at Arsenal’s team over the last few years, it has brought forward, time and time again, young English players and ultimately they have gone off to be very successful with other teams around the country, but they did not get into the Arsenal first team because they could not compete with the skill levels of those other international players that were playing for Arsenal.”
“Those young English players were given the best coaching and every opportunity to play for Arsenal. Now, if they were given that opportunity and did not succeed, I have to say that there must be something else fundamentally wrong with English sport, not the fact that we have foreign players in our teams.”
Click here to read Richard Younger-Ross’ speech in full
Liberal Democrat John Leech said that it is the responsibility of Football Authorities rather than the Government to develop home grown talent and recommended several ways in which this could be achieved.
Mr Leech said:
“Three positive steps could be taken. I accept the point that it is not Government’s role to do this, but I think that it is the role of the football authorities to examine ways in which we can ensure that home-grown talent can still come through in the future. First, we should scrap the transfer window. I understand why it was brought in. It was brought in to protect the interests of smaller clubs, but it simply does not. People at clubs outside the premiership will say that the transfer window does not work. The transfer window means that transfers become more of a risk for clubs and they are looking for instant impact from the signings that they make in the transfer windows. Premiership teams obviously do not want to sell their players to their rivals, so teams are forced to buy either players from lower divisions or foreign players with a proven track record in the top flight of football, so obviously clubs are more likely to go for the foreign imports who have a proven track record.”
“Secondly, rather than trying to restrict foreign imports, we should have a high minimum percentage quota for home-grown talent in the academies to ensure that if clubs want to take lots of good young talent from abroad, they still have to take a very significant number of home-grown players in their academies and lower teams, so that those players have the opportunity to flourish in big teams.”
“Thirdly, we should consider levelling the playing field on the rules about transfers. Buying players from other English clubs almost always requires a massive outlay of cash, whereas if clubs buy players from the continent, they are often able to spread the payments over a much longer period. Because clubs are often strapped for cash, that is a far more attractive option. Surely that inequity cannot continue. A proper level playing field is needed so that it is not cheaper in the short term to buy players from abroad than it is to buy players from other English clubs.”
Click here to read John Leech’s speech in full
Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Minister Richard Younger-Ross also spoke in the debate, saying that the level of support for coaching given at a community level was to blame for English players not being able to get first team in the Premiership.
Mr Younger-Ross said:
“Concentrating on the subject of the debate, I have some concerns. The idea that foreign footballers are the problem of English football is dangerous and misleading. English teams have always relied on foreign footballers. As I said, I am an Arsenal fan and I remember a plethora of Irishmen - Brady and others - playing for the Arsenal. I also remember a plethora of Scots playing for the Arsenal and, of course, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the famous Georgie Best, who played for Manchester United. Non-English players have always been there.”
“Provided a foreign player meets the immigration requirements and can get a work permit, there is nothing to stop them coming to work here. If they can get an immigration visa to come here, why should they not be allowed to play? Why should they be told that they are restricted in the number of places in a team that they can compete for? One would not allow that to happen in any other industry. One would not say, “Oh, we have x number of Members of Parliament. This is the British Parliament, therefore we will restrict it to the number of people who have been born and brought up here.” There are restrictions on who can stand for Parliament, yes, but they are not essentially to do with where a person is born. The danger with the home-grown players rules is that that is what will happen and restrictions will be introduced.”
“A lot of money is currently put into the sport; £40 million comes from premier league clubs for their academies and £9.3 million comes from the premier league itself. The problem comes with the way that the Football Association has run its youth training, as was alluded to earlier. The problem comes with the support that we give to the community clubs, the coaching and the investment in coaching in the UK, rather than at the higher level.”
“Ultimately, a player will rise to the highest level of competition that they can and if they are not good enough to play against internationals, they will not get to the top of the premier league. If one looks at Arsenal’s team over the last few years, it has brought forward, time and time again, young English players and ultimately they have gone off to be very successful with other teams around the country, but they did not get into the Arsenal first team because they could not compete with the skill levels of those other international players that were playing for Arsenal.”
“Those young English players were given the best coaching and every opportunity to play for Arsenal. Now, if they were given that opportunity and did not succeed, I have to say that there must be something else fundamentally wrong with English sport, not the fact that we have foreign players in our teams.”
Click here to read Richard Younger-Ross’ speech in full
Applicability: this item refers to England. Due to devolution, detailed policy may be different in other areas of the UK.
