Feb 04 2008
Hill-Wood Hits Out At F.A.
Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has hit back at Brian Barwick’s claims that Premier League clubs have a responsibility to produce more players for England. FA chief executive Barwick said that top clubs must produce more English-born stars but Hill-Wood disagrees and he said:
“It seems to me that the people at the FA are out of touch with reality.
“I can’t think why anyone would make these comments when Arsenal and many Premier League clubs are spending a lot of money on the academies.
“It is not our fault if many English players are not good enough. It is the same for every one of the big clubs now. We find players world-wide. Football is now global.
“I would love to see an Arsenal team with 11 English players but professional football has expanded and developed.
“It is against the law to put a restriction on the number of non-English players in a team and I am pleased about that. If you do that you devalue the currency of the Premier League.
“It is also the same in any industry. You go along with the trends or you suffer badly.”
I do agree with him. What the FA are missing is that Arsenal produce as many young English stars as any other club but when a club is as big as Arsenal it takes a lot for those players to make it into the first team. David Bentley is a great example. He wasn’t getting much first team football because at that stage in his career he was not good enough. He has Arsenal to thanks for his development into the player he is today and he will soon get more chances with the England team. Also Arsenal have a host of young Englishmen who are on the fringes. Justin Hoyte could well be a future England right back and Randall and Gibbs who recently went on loan look like they could be potential stars. If Arsenal were to buy English talent who are good enough for their first 11 they would also need to spend stupid amounts of money. Spurs paid £16.1m for Darren Bent and he is not even good enough to start for them. It’s just a joke and that is something the FA really should be looking at.
Hill-Wood also made reference to previously unsuccessful World Cup campaigns - including 1974 and 1978 when England failed to qualify for the finals.
“There were hardly any foreign players in the English game so what was the excuse then?”
Another point that is falling on deaf ears. Look at the England team we have now. There are some world class superstars there yet as a team they fail. This was mainly down to the manager and he was sacked. Now the FA have a new manager who just happens to be foreign (hypercritical) and if he can make the England team gel then they can win anything.