Ferdinand: The way some of our clubs treat the England team is a national disgrace'A manager who spends millions on a foreigner won't be allowed to drop him and pick a kid instead' Rio Ferdinand has watched the build-up to England’s 4-0 win against Moldova on Friday night — and the crucial tie against Ukraine on Tuesday — with a growing feeling of unease about the state of the national team he served so valiantly in a 14-year international career.
Ferdinand, capped 81 times before his retirement from national service in May, has no doubt that the dearth of English footballers playing regularly in the Premier League is damaging England at international level.
And in a week when Greg Dyke, the new chairman of the Football Association, warned that an ‘alarming’ lack of English players in the Premier League is posing a ‘very serious’ problem for the national game, Ferdinand told The Mail on Sunday that the attitude of some clubs towards the England team is nothing short of ‘a disgrace’.
The 34-year-old Manchester United defender has watched with concern as Roy Hodgson’s team have struggled to dominate their World Cup qualifying group. Automatic qualification for Brazil 2014 is far from guaranteed and, with Dyke effectively admitting England have no realistic chance of winning a World Cup until 2022 at the earliest, Ferdinand insists drastic measures are needed to address the shortcomings, including the potentially explosive question of forcing clubs in the top flight to adopt a quota system.
‘Having so few English players in the Premier League diminishes the English team, of course it does,’ says Ferdinand. ‘Look at the Manchester City game recently against Newcastle. There was barely an English player on the pitch, three out of 22 starters. ‘That is a disgrace. If you look at it and ask whether there should be a stipulation that you have a minimum number of players who are English, even just in your squad, I think that should happen. If you look at a lot of teams, there are England players who aren’t playing for their clubs — yet we’re hoping to go to a World Cup and do well!’Ferdinand would not be drawn into naming individual clubs where England players cannot get a start but James Milner and Jack Rodwell at City are two current examples. In fact, United’s Manchester rivals have used only two English starters this season: Joe Hart and Joleon Lescott.
Last weekend in the Premier League, Newcastle used no Englishmen while Stoke, Sunderland, Everton and City used fewer than five, including substitutes.
In the first season of the Premier League, 1992-93, Englishmen accounted for 72 per cent of the players used by the 20 clubs that season. The trend for that figure has been a consistent decline, to the alarming extent that only 32 per cent of the players used so far this season have been English.Ferdinand is aware that quotas on English players cannot be imposed as they would contravene EU laws on freedom of movement, although there would be nothing to prevent a voluntary quota system if all clubs agreed. ‘I would do what Turkey do, and have limits,’ he says. In that country, clubs can have a maximum of 10 foreign players on the books, and no more than six in any 18-man matchday squad.
‘I know that European laws won’t let a legal quota happen. So you can’t do that. But if you want to protect English football and its heritage and its future, something like that has to be done.’Ferdinand can speak with credibility on this because United have long been famous for home-grown talent, from the Busby era to a contemporary Carrington youth set-up that has produced more than 100 players currently plying their trade at professional clubs in England, Europe and further afield.
‘Manchester United are a leading light of youth development,’ he says. ‘There is no questioning the impact that the best foreign players have had. Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola — they had a massive positive impact on our football.
‘Our game would not have been enhanced without them. Arsene Wenger’s ethos as a manager changed things, too, on diet and nutrition and other areas off the pitch, and that’s been positive. So there is a place for the best of foreign talent. But they’re the elite. What I don’t like seeing is a manager having to choose between a kid coming through and a more established foreign player who isn’t perhaps that good.’
Ferdinand believes the crux of the problem is owners and chairmen wanting immediate success. He claims English football is littered with examples of large sums being spent on importing players who are only marginally better — and sometimes not as good — as home-grown ones might be if they were given the chance.
He recalls: ‘When I was a teenager [at West Ham], Harry Redknapp had the confidence to put me on the bench, and then play me … Harry probably knew he wasn’t going to get the sack unless we got relegated so he had time to allow us to develop. You need a chairman who believes in a youth policy and wants young English players in his team. If you’re willing to sacrifice the odd result because you’ve had faith in your own young players, with the possible benefit a few years down the line of having produced good senior players, then that’s a change of mentality needed.
‘Nowadays, there are managers who have lots of foreign players, not of the standard of Henry and Cantona and those others, but they’ve still paid £7m-£8m or more for them, and they’re on £30,000, £40,000, £50,000 a week, which means they can’t sit in the stands.
‘If a manager plays an English kid instead, his chairman will be saying, “You’re wasting my money”.
‘So you’re locked into a cycle of negativity. The young English player is stuck playing reserves in front of 10 people on a Wednesday.’Ferdinand was chatting last week to team-mate Javier Hernandez, who asked him which clubs were the best producers of talent. ‘I told Chicharito that 15-20 years ago it was West Ham. Obviously, for a long time, it’s been United … and still is.
‘It’s in the DNA of United, from the top. Sir Alex Ferguson kept Matt Busby’s tradition going. When you walk into the training ground, it’s about history and fabric, it’s not just about medals but is also about young players you’ve produced being in the first-team squad.'
‘Now you have Southampton, too, as serious producers, with Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, and they’ve a crop of kids coming up … Luke Shaw for me is going to be a top left-back, they’ve James Ward-Prowse and others.’
Ferdinand name-checks other bright young English talent, from United’s Danny Welbeck and Jesse Lingard to Ross Barkley at Everton and Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge.
‘The issue for me about young players in general is where are they going to get their opportunities? Because of the pressure from chairmen and owners, they are not allowing managers time.’United demonstrated their own faith in British talent when replacing the retiring Ferguson with fellow Scot David Moyes.
Ferdinand insists it is business as usual at Old Trafford despite the change after Ferguson’s almost 27 years in charge.
He says: ‘It’s the same as any season, it’s exciting to get it started. You set your stall out to be successful and to win trophies, and just because the manager has changed doesn’t mean that attitude has changed.’
This season could be the most open for years, with United, Chelsea and City as leading contenders — but Liverpool have started well and both Tottenham and Arsenal acquired strong new talent in the transfer window.
Ferdinand acknowledges that Mesut Ozil, Arsenal’s big signing, is a ‘top player, very, very good’. But he adds: ‘As a player you don’t want it to be wide open. We want to win the title by 20 points every year. What happened last season, I’d take that every time.
‘For the punters, yeah, it’s going to be much more exciting and when I retire I’d love it to be like that every year, lots of teams in close competition until the last few days of the season. But as a player you want the games won and things wrapped up as soon as possible.
‘Teams have invested in their squads and it will be tight. It’s too early to judge who’s going to be there at the end but we’ll have an idea just after Christmas.’
United stuttered against Liverpool in a match where Ferdinand’s pre-match routine was slightly disrupted. He explains he is a creature of habit with what he eats, even what he wears, before a match and on the day. The day before a game will always be chicken and pasta ‘with a small bit of mash potato on the side. A banana, yoghurt, some honey, a cup of coffee’. He goes to sleep visualising his role the next day, his opponents, his first steps into his first tackle, all in detail. And on the day of game, this focus will intensify up to kick-off.
Last weekend, however, due to new requirements from broadcasters, he was picked to give a pre-match interview. ‘It’s only a minute, no big deal but not something we’ve done before,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t my routine. But I’m not blaming that for the result.’
Speaking of results, and back to England, Ferdinand believes that despite a qualifying campaign of fits and starts, England will get to next year’s World Cup — and he intends to be there … as a fan!
‘I’ll be going out to watch, as a supporter. I’ve not bought tickets but I should be able to get some. I’ve never been to Brazil, so it will be interesting, I’ll treat it as a holiday with family and friends.’
Will England, with an ailing talent pool, be there?
‘I think we will qualify,’ Ferdinand says. ‘There’s a determination within the squad to prove people wrong.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2414962/Rio-Ferdinand-There-minimum-number-English-players-Premier-League-teams.html
