Capping foreign players...

Recently there have been more and more calls for some kind of cap on the number of foreign players playing in the Premiership. Steven Gerrard has joined the chorus begun by Steve Coppell and Alex Ferguson. However, recent mootings from the EU are that they wouldn't allow such a restriction on the movement of labour within Europe.

I have to admit I'm a bit in two minds on this. One has to ask, why are there so many players here in the first place? One reason is that Premiership clubs have an awful lot of money and so can afford the best players from around the world, another is the English players generally, for a given standard, are reputed to cost more than their overseas equivalents.

Another reason might be that the English players just aren't good enough. However, it doesn't follow that restricting the number of competing foreign players will increase this quality of English player. Right now, the best English players have to cut the mustard in an extremely competitive domestic league, and so those that are actually in the Premiership are world class.

Restrict that, and will English players necessarily be so good?

England are (in all likelihood) about to fail to qualify for the European Championships, which is a national embarrassment, yet it would bring an end to a run of five consecutive championships (World Cup or Euro Championships) that England have qualified for - which is a record, hence it doesn't follow that necessarily the England team is suffering that much for the current Premiership situation.

All in all, I think I'm against a quota, and not just for this reason - it's giving a false sense of quality, of achievement. Being in academia, where universities employ people from all over the world, I think I might feel a little uneasy to know that I only got my job because someone else couldn't have even applied for it. The same goes for English players in the Premiership - it's up to them to prove themselves!