Head to head: Alex Ferguson v Arsene Wenger – who’s right about quotas for homegrown players?

Ollie Irish

8th, November 2007

9 Comments

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It’s been one of the longest running feuds in the Premier League but the latest spat between the two is over Sepp Blatter’s plans to limit the number of foreign players in English teams.
With only one Englishman at Arsenal, Wenger is obviously opposed to the idea and it doesn’t take much for Fergie to play Red Devil’s advocate. Is this just more mind games or do either of them have a point?

Posted in Arsenal, Man Utd

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9 Comments

  1. OmegaSupreme says:

    I don’t see the point. If the argument is to produce better home-grown players then it’s flawed. Natural selection tells us that the harder the competition the better the British players must become.

  2. devil says:

    We’ve standard of our national team now is better than it was when the league was almost exclusively English – that’s because of the foreign influx

  3. Anonymous says:

    theo walcott and justin hoyte are two englismen

  4. Ritch says:

    Only one of them actually plays for Arsenal though

  5. Anonymous says:

    if there’s a worse idea for “improving” football, i’ve yet to hear it.

  6. AJ says:

    I’m foreign myself, but I still think Arsene’s selection policies are ridiculous. Instead of getting the best of local lads, they sweep Africa or South America, stick their (usually dirt poor) findings in an Academy or at a feeder club and pick only the cream of the crop. The ones that don’t make the grade are kicked out into the street.
    What clubs like Arsenal doing is preposterous. Sure, it makes for good entertainment, but so did black & white minstrel shows for the people of their time.

  7. Mr Blackett says:

    In an ideal world clubs would only play players from the local area. Obviously that isn’t the world we live in and attempts to implement such a policy would destroy the league as we know (and love) it and open it up to legal action it can’t defend itself against. If you can get a permit to work here then you can work for whoever you want.
    Wenger is basically right but Fergie is an idealist. I don’t think you can criticise either for expressing the views they have.

  8. Number8 says:

    Fergie isn’t an idealist. He’s just stirring up some shit. And why not, we all miss Jose Mourinho. Atleast Fergie is trying.

  9. Colin says:

    I do think that teams should put forth more effort to develop home-grown talent, but I don’t think there needs to be a ‘rule’ to enforce it. This goes right along with the discussion of the lack of English managers in the Premiership. Arsene Wenger is French and, therefore, has a lot of French players. More English managers might mean more English players.

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