Despite the struggles of its national squad, England’s Barclays Premier League has become the most lucrative and popular soccer league in the world, thanks in part to a steady influx of foreign players. But some argue that, by importing so many foreigners, the Premier League has stifled the development of homegrown English players. Fewer than half of all Premier League players are English; among the top teams, the percentage of native players is even smaller. At first-place Arsenal, only five members of the 35-player first team are English. At third-place Chelsea, the 25-member first team includes only eight Englishmen.
The dynamic is quite different in Italy, where only about 30 percent of players in Serie A, the top Italian soccer league, are non-Italians. Even at the best clubs, such as AS Roma and Juventus, foreign players make up roughly half of the first team. Does this explain why Italy has been more successful than England on the international stage? Some soccer pundits think so. The Italians have won four World Cups, including in 2006, and one European Championship; England has won only one World Cup—when they hosted the tournament back in 1966—and zero European crowns. Some reckon those numbers might be different if only the English Premier League functioned more like Serie A—that is, if it featured a higher portion of domestic players.
A strange story and strange reasoning. Will Britain set import quotas on its soccer players?
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