SIR – Football is the national sport and loved by many, but a lot of people are asking if the national team suffering is from lack of home-grown players coming through.
There can be no argument that foreign players plying their trade here bring much to the Premier League. They are a pleasure to watch.
But at time of writing the 20 Premier League clubs in the transfer market have bought only 24 English players compared with 89 from overseas. In 2012 it was a ratio of 30/100.
We need to bring back the ruling that each club must field a certain percentage of players in its squads.
Countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy have far more homegrown players but their leagues do not have the money of the Premier League.
This season’s opening Premier League matches saw only 34 per cent of the players eligible to represent England. In 1992/93 that figure was 73 per cent.
In last season’s Champions League games, only seven of the 368 goals scored were from English players (1.9 per cent).
From group games onwards only 34 out of the 698 players fielded were English (4.9 per cent).
The figures speak for themselves.
GB DIPPER
Leominster
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