In this final instalment of the series that examines ’How English is the English Premier League’, I want to conclude the threads discussed in Part I and Part II of the article.

I’d like to firstly highlight one other important aspect of foreign influence in the English game following on from Part II – – and that is club ownership.

Foreign Ownership of English Clubs

As with players and managers, there were an insignificant handful of foreign owners through the early years of the EPL who either partially or wholly owned clubs.

The football landscape was changed beyond recognition in 2003 when Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, bought Chelsea. Legend has it that Abramovich decided to buy Chelsea after seeing an aerial view of Stamford Bridge from a helicopter during a ride across London.

Apparently, he also wanted to buy other stuff but he was told that they weren’t for sale and that they belonged to the Queen.

What was significantly different was that unlike other foreign club owners who came before him, Abramovich pumped an obscene amount of money into the club – £700 million and counting to date.

His sole aim was to move Chelsea from the obscurity of mid to lower table mediocrity and turn them into the biggest football club in the world.

Assessing whether he has achieved his goal depends on which side of the bread you’re buttering, and I’m conscious this article isn’t about the rights and wrongs of foreign ownership per se – but more about the impact it has had.

However, I will say this– it’s a hell of an expensive way to try and achieve world domination, and I believe that Abramovich himself has acknowledged how unsustainable the path he took was.

Writing off a £350 million loss and turning another £350 million into equity in the hope that you might one day recoup it says a lot about a businessman who realises when it’s time to cut his losses.

Setting aside the rights and wrongs of this ’sugar daddy’ model of ownership, what Abramovich did was to open the flood gates for other wealthy individuals to venture into ownership of EPL clubs – with varying results I must add.

You have the owners who used leveraged finance like Hicks and Gillett of Liverpool and the Glazer family who own Manchester United; and you have the filthy rich Abu Dhabi Investment Corporation who pretty much print the money from the mint attached to the back of their office complex.

Without delving into the merits or not of this new breed of foreign ownership, the issue as relates to this article is that the influx of the obscene amounts of money pumped into football by these filthy rich folks has had a substantive impact on both the administration and the technical side of football.

• Wages and expectations of player and staff remuneration have spiralled out of control because of what the rich owners are willing to accept as normal.
• Other clubs have had to resort to the ’cheque book’ culture of management where unsustainable debt finance is used as a first resort to chase glory and survival in equal measure
• The gap between elite clubs and clubs in the lower echelons of the English leagues has grown wider and wider.
• The media and football establishment circus who only seem interested in self preservation and curving out careers for hacks and pundits have perfected the art of misguided and sensationalist cheer leading. Considering that this very media is the last bastion of imperialism – it goes without saying what influence they can have over the masses when it comes to shaping opinion and culture.

Conclusions

I want to conclude by drawing on the core thrust of this article series and reflecting how xenophobia creeps into a culture where the football establishment views what is ’foreign’ with suspicion

Again, I want to use Arsenal as an example to illustrate my point. In a recent article I wrote, I posed the question as to whether Anti-Arsenalism is a reality or a myth. This article will give you a bit more depth about where I’m coming from on this anti-Arsenalism angle.

The football media in general, and pundits and commentators in particular have openly shown bias to Arsenal for the simple reason that Arsenal is not ’English enough’ for their liking.

It’s become common practice to here openly xenophobic statements from journalists and presenters on the air waves and news columns like:

• ”Arsenal will never win the EPL without an English backbone” (whatever that means)
• ”I can’t believe Arsenal and their fragile glove wearing foreigners are not men enough to play in the snow” – this is in reference to the cancellation of a home tie against Bolton on Jan 6th 2009
• ”These cheating foreigners have brought their dodgy ways of playing and we don’t want it in our honest game” – diving, anyone? Notwithstanding that the 2 saints of English football Gerrard and Rooney have perfected the art of diving that the same commentators call ’being clever’.
• Constant negative references to the number of foreign players in Arsenal’s line-up and reference to the falsehood that Wenger is responsible for killing English football.
• Constant references to Arsenal allegedly not having – wait for this – ”Good old fashioned English grit and steel – or passion and commitment”, as if the attributes were a preserve of the English brand of football.

It’s ironic in that Wenger is castigated for not following the blue print of what is seen as quintessentially English – whether it be his training and development methodology, his brand and style of football, or his unwavering commitment to total football and the belief that you can win championships by playing beautiful football.

The net impact of the collective xenophobia bandied around in the name of self preservation of English football is that Arsenal have become the ’whipping boy’ of the ”…they are not English enough” band wagon.

To the establishment that is openly or inadvertently fighting for the endangered species that is the brand of English football, Arsenal are a visible representation of all that is supposedly killing English football.

The truth is that English football – in terms of quality, technique, development and style – really needs to move into the 21st century like other cultures have moved on. It’s a trait that needs instilling right across the board from the Hackney marshes to Wembley, and from the youth ranks of 10 year old kids to the senior national team.

In Holland for example, kids from the age of 9 or 10 are taught the virtues of total football. They’re taught how to caress and seduce the ball; how to use it well and how to enjoy the game.

They are taught the value of team spirit and mental attitude and they’re taught not to be afraid to express themselves out of a tight spot on the pitch. By the time these kids are senior professionals, technique and total football are a way of life.

In England, football still seems to be stuck in a time warp when it was cool to play a certain brand of football. The type of football that focuses more on physical strength and the push, kick, shove and run mentality to get the ball to the other side of the pitch.

When technique and skill are devoid, characteristics like grit, steel and graft are openly promoted in substitution as total virtues in the game.

Let’s face it, some of this ”we’re well ‘ard” mentality just promotes thuggery sanctioned as association football. The media for example, openly embraces teams that have pre-match team talks as ”the only way to play Arsenal is to get into their faces, up their noses and kick them”.

Off the pitch, such statements (printed in the press) can easily qualify as a crime of conspiracy to cause ABH or GBH.

I feel that the xenophobia then kicks in when ignorance takes over and the foreign influence is misguidedly seen as endangering English football as we know it.

My sense is that the English footballing establishment should go back to the drawing board and totally re-think how it approaches football. They might find out what ails English football and stop blaming the ’foreigners’ in the English league for the decline in the standards of English football.

To be honest, if there weren’t any foreigners in the English Premier league, it wouldn’t be the English Premier League.

The powers that be in the establishment wouldn’t do any worse than spending a week at London Colney with the Arsenal youth and reserve teams – which incidentally, is full of technically gifted and promising English players.

In Part I of this article series, I set out a rationale that explains the international context of today’s footballing environment as relates to the English Premier league. In this second instalment, we examine the impact of foreign influence across all aspects of the game.

Player influence

By the early 90s, there was already a sprinkling of foreign players within the English leagues but their impact wasn’t in any way significant at the time. 22 non British players were registered to play in the inaugural season of the Premier league. In the 2009-2010 season, there are 337 registered players from 66 different countries.

Numerous arguments have been put forward suggesting that this monumental growth of foreign players in the EPL of over 1500% in 18 years has adversely affected English football. The case is made that the quality of English football and the progress of English players is hampered by the continued participation of such large numbers of foreign players in the EPL.

There are fundamental flaws in the premise of such arguments. For one, taking this view invites an inherent assumption that English football and the culture around it is better than and is perhaps being tainted by a foreign brand of football. In my view, it’s an assumption that totally tests the boundaries of arrogance and vanity.

Secondly, such arguments miss the fact that the collective influence of foreign players has brought so much more to the premier league as a way of life. The inevitable by-product of this is that English players are in a much better environment to prosper and develop their technical capability because they’re playing alongside quality players, some of whom are the best in the world.

The most noticeable impact that foreign players have brought to the English game is the addition of flair, creativity and technical skill. The overall quality of the football has significantly improved and for the most part, this exciting mix of world talent has been responsible for making the EPL as successful as it is.

I think it’s fair to say that the EPL wouldn’t be what it is now without the likes of top quality foreign players like Dennis Bergkamp, Eric Cantona, Paulo Di Canio, Jian Franco Zola, Patrick Vieira, Jurgen Klinsmann, Robert Pires, Thierry Henry, Christiano Ronaldo, etc.

This argument in part has morphed into an almost instinctive need by the English football establishment to defend what I would refer to as the endangered species that is the English brand of football. I believe that taking this view is a simplistic cop-out that plants us firmly onto the slippery slope of xenophobic attitudes.

I’ll expand more on how I see the xenophobia manifesting itself in the final instalment of this article tomorrow – but it’s worth just mentioning the notion abound that the growth and development of English players is actually stunted or adversely affected by the increased number of foreign players in the EPL is a falsehood.

The fact of the matter is that if England players are talented, they shouldn’t have a problem rising to the top and being part of the cream of the crop. It says a lot when many EPL managers are now opting to sign non-English players for the simple reason that English players generally come with an over-inflated price tag that is not a true reflection of their value on the pitch.

A good example to illustrate my point is the comparison between Jolian Lescott who cost Manchester City £22 million and Thomas Vermaelen, the former Ajax captain and the current Belgian national team captain, who cost Arsenal £10 million. Another example – Fabien Delph cost Aston Villa £7 million, which is more expensive than what it cost Arsenal to acquire both Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie.

Influence of Foreign Managers

Allow me to use Arsene Wenger as the perfect illustration of the influence of foreign managers in English football.

In a recent UEFA report by Andy Roxburgh, the former England manager and now football commentator for BBC radio Graham Taylor makes a telling observation about Arsene Wenger.

Taylor says:

Arsene Wenger has changed the face of English football. When he came in 1996 pretty well everybody was playing 4-4-2 but we were playing a static game and Wenger has to be given great credit for getting the movement of players and the flexibility of teams.

Wenger produced a side that did play 4-4-2 but it was a very flexible 4-4-2. The front 4 were able to exchange with great movement. This allowed Arsenal’s flair players to play as strikers and midfielders at the same time with anyone of them likely to score.

Former Arsenal players have alluded to their first impressions and reactions to Wenger joining Arsenal in September 1996. On being informed that they had a new French manager, the almost instinctive reaction in the dressing room was “He’s French, what the hell does he know about English football?”.

This initial reaction, coupled with the now infamous headline from the London Evening Standard of ”Arsene Who?” pales into insignificance when you evaluate the sheer impact that Arsene Wenger has had in English football.

I highly recommend that you read a more in-depth article I wrote called ’Where Arsenal leads, others will follow’. In this article, I capture what I think makes Wenger’s impact and influence to English football both unique and ground breaking.

It isn’t just the fact that Wenger is the second most successful manager in the EPL having won 7 major trophies (not counting the Community Shields) – and achieving 2 doubles in the process.

The tangibility of the trophies somewhat clouds the intangibility of the vision he has brought to the game, the style and brand of football (better known as Wengerball) that Arsenal plays, and the training and development culture that he has instilled at London Colney.

Off the pitch, Wenger has worked well with the Arsenal board to ensure that Arsenal is now recognized as one of the top 5 most successful football clubs in the world. The fact that this has been done despite the shackles imposed on Arsenal by the expensive move to Ashburton Grove from Highbury, the fact that he has had to build a squad from within Arsenal’s youth development structure for most part, and the fact that Arsenal remains a very solvent and financially healthy club in this age of economic turmoil makes Wenger’s achievements all the more remarkable.

IN the article on Arsenal’s leadership I referred you to above, big names in the footballing world like Guus Hiddink, Fabio Capello, Rapha Benitez and even the Manchester City Chairman Gary Cook pay great tribute to the impact Wenger has had on the English game. They do this in their endorsement of Arsenal’s vision and their own desire for others to follow in Arsenal’s footsteps.

Join us tomorrow for the last instalment of this article series. I’ll briefly touch on the influence of the ownership of clubs by foreign individuals. I’ll also talk about how I see the xenophobia that I’ve previously mentioned manifest itself in the context of the struggle of achieving a balance between the quintessentially English brand of football, and well – football in the 21st century.