English Premier League is perhaps the most popular soccer leagues in the world, there is no doubt about it, but there is one down side of its popularity which is costing English soccer as a whole. Actually, league clubs are more business houses than sports groups, they are more concerned about improving there balance sheets rather improving level of English soccer. Many experts have long been saying there is something seriously wrong with English soccer and if a prompt action is not taken at this time, there would be no English soccer in top soccer nations. Actually, everything starts from the domestic league and EPL can definitely improve English soccer, but it depends upon clubs whether they would like to forgo foreign players just to hire English players for the sake of English soccer. Notably, a shocking revelation has been issued by football statistician: Opta, who says participation of English players in domestic league is lowest among all popular leagues in the world. Take the data: Five years ago, in 2007-08, there were 35.25% English players playing in the English top flight and this figure has now reduced to 31.8%. If we compare this data with other popular leagues, Spanish league La Liga enjoys the maximum home players’ participation as Spaniards playing more than 59% of the time.
If we check who is stealing the English space, players belong to every corner of the world, like Scottish players who occupy 3.22%, Welsh players who secure 3.12% along with Northern Irish, French, Dutch, and Spain. Looking at these details, one question arises, why English players are not the first choice for League clubs; reason could be a lack of quality players in England or foreign stars attract more crowd than own youngers. Another question, why foreign players get attracted to EPL and answer is quite simple: high rising signing deals and host of hospitality services being offered by these league clubs.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is the first one reacting to these figures, he said, “There are only two ways you can see it – you have the opportunity to have the best players in the world in England, so let’s see what they have and let’s produce players who have the same qualities. Or you say, let’s protect our players, keep the good players out and let’s just play the English players. I believe that we live in a global world. The real question for English football is whether it can produce the players with the needed quality.”
So, hopefully, English think-tank will take a serious note on this and make some significant changes in the league pattern or they would continue losing their share in their own domestic league.