Who's right?

Roughly just under two years ago, Alan Pardew unwittingly provoked a spat with Arsene Wenger when the former felt unable to support any of the English teams that had progressed beyond the group stage of the Champions League because they had so few English players. Wenger took it very personally since his team contained the least number of home-grown footballers. He could have charged Pardew with hypocrisy since the then West Ham manager had taken an Arsenal fringe player on loan who happened to be French. But he went down the inflammatory route, saying there was an aspect of racism to Pardew's comments. Pardew, an often agreeable man, was shocked and apologised if his words had been misconstrued.

Now, twenty-three months later and seven years after Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, said he thought it disgusting that Chelsea fielded a starting line-up entirely of foreigners (though they brought on an English substitute), pressure is building up again on the lack of English players in the Premier League. Chelsea backed down and did not do that again after the Southampton match, but Wenger has been unrepentant about not just having a starting XI of non-English or even British men, but staffing his bench frequently with no-one who could represent the English team.

Pardew has kept quiet, but others are coming forward, like Steven Gerrard or the usually softely-spoken Steve Coppell, plus two Scots - Sir Alex Ferguson (somewhat disengenuously) and Gordon Brown (less so). Even Michel Platini, Wenger's own countryman, scoffs as he laments the lack of English footballers in English football teams. Blatter is rapidly accruing allies who no longer will be silent.

Wenger says he is committed to building an entertaining and successful (in that order) team. That is undeniable. He implies that this would be impossible with English players. So why does Arsenal have such a Francophone bias? Does Togo have better academies than England? Obviously, Wenger has better things to do with his time than trudge down to Hackney marshes and that is why he has never uncovered a Wayne Rooney. It is not just Wenger. Liverpool with a Spanish manager has a very Spanish language bent. Many other teams are quite cosmopolitan. But Wenger by his actions and by his temperament has made himself the figurehead for ignoring English players if possible, with the token Theo Walcott his one sop.


It depends how far you take localism. Do you only take players from the same country or the same region or the same city or just the streets in the immediate surrounds of the stadium? The Hampshire clubs are closer to France than Newcastle. And if and when Everton move to Kirkby, where is the community anchor; Wimbledon emasculated and defenestrated itself when it re-branded itself MK Dons and moved to Milton Keynes. Some says fans should come from the locality - what about those they support on the pitch via the agency of the nebulous entity that is the club. I'm not saying yay or nay to players coming from overseas, but asking how at what level does something or someone have to be for a person to identify with. Ironically, given its excoriation, MK Dons have produced a fine set of young English players, several of whom have gone on to reach the top of the league tree.

At root, it comes down to money. Firstly, for some strange reason, there are more non-English footballers in the world than English ones. Once you've got your breath over that bombshell, supply and demand tells us that the more supply there is, the cheaper the price will be, since demand will not pay over the rate for something it can get somewhere else. There is a limited supply of English players who are half-decent at the highest level, hence demand for them pushes up the price. Also, English players don't need the acclimatisation process of getting used to the English type of football. Brazil exports players all over the world - South Korea, Russia, Spain, etc. - but Brazil has a population of 170 million of whom a large proportion are very poor where football is both seen as the only leisure activity and a way out of poverty, compared to England's 48 million people who are largely sedentary and have far greater leisure distractions.

The second reason it comes down to money is that the financial implications of staying in the Premiership or qualifying for Europe is so great that clubs can't wait around to develop English players, so they buy developed foreign players, for hoped-for quick success, marginalising the chances Englishmen get. Wenger takes this to the extreme by nurturing teenage foreigners, denying all English players bar Walcott even the reserves. By having one of the best scouting systems there is, he can pluck the most precocious of foreign youngsters to keep Arsenal in the European elite.

Steve Coppell earlier in the season complained of Carlos-Kickaball, the term coined and discredited in the same instance by then plain Mr Alan Sugar. It is suggestive of a foreign mercenary of a footballer only in it for the money. His recent remarks could be seen as sour grapes coming in the aftermath of his Reading side being well beat by Arsenal, so in Wenger's view Coppell might want to take Arsenal down a peg or two by forcing English players on him. but that doesn't invalidate Coppell's remarks automatically. The Arsenal manager, give him his due, is a top coach and has bonded the players under his charge. They aren't in it for the money; but they are for him. When Wenger goes as he must one day, will they stay with such willingness? Wenger believes and says foreigners improve the standard of the Premiership, but foreigners aren't, intrinsically, better than English players. To suggest that is being racist towards English people which in an irony cannot be ruled out of Wenger. For every Francis Jeffers he has bought, there is a Pascal Cygan or Gilles Grimandi, but Wenger is silent on those acquisitions.

It is a canny strategy by Arsenal as all the big clubs are now global brands and foreign players will not only not matter to foreign fans, but may attract them if they see one of their national number represented (and for English fans?). Manchester United used to be massive in South Africa when Quinton Fortune played for them.

Even British Arsenal fans are confused. Before the Pardew-Wenger spat, there were murmuring that there should be more English players at Arsenal. Then Wenger spoke and the cult of personality ensured all Arsenal fans adhered to his line, even though Pardew could and should have taken Wenger to the cleaners through the libel courts. Then there was talk of Arsenal being taken over by an American or Uzbek-Russian. The Arsenal board currently ensure a strict policy that no matter how many foreigners are employed, the club will remain in British hands and they see that as important. Arsenal fans, when questioned, at first agree with this, then remember Wenger and swiftly say the matter is irrelevant. Not to the Arsenal board! It is a complex philosophical conundrum the knots Arsenal have tied themselves into, but if the Arsenal fans can't get to grips with it, Wenger is at fault through his consistent advocacy of foreign footballers and unspoken derision of English ones. Arsenal is now principally about entertainment, but isn't that one of the arguments the much-castigated MK Dons used to justify their move.

Former England manager Ron Greenwood once complained about too many foreign players, but he was being rather cheeky, since he was talking of Welsh and Scottish footballers. But now there is a growing clamour, home and abroad, not to rid foreigners from the national game, but give Englishmen more of a chance through developing them from an early age. Arsenal subvert their own academy by taking in foreigners. Sometimes they don't make the mark, but then these don't get reported. Who remembers young Dutchman Lloyd Owusu-Abeyie? They are far from the only academy practising this though. There were previously voices in the wilderness ranting about too many foreigners in the English game, but they deserved to be there for their overt xenophobia; now more moderate voices are coming to the fore with suitable solutions for what they see as an overbearing problem of not enough Englishmen getting a chance. Ultimately, it can be boiled down to the old maxim that if you believe the whole world is mad, but you are not, in fact, proves that you are the mad one; and Arsene Wenger associating Pardew with racism was unworthy, but as the world seems to agree with Pardew so maybe it is Wenger who needs to look in the mirror.