English Premier League Chairman Sir David Richards’ position may be in some doubt after he admitted in Dubai that England’s failure to qualify for the current European Championship was because “we’ve been a bit lazy in the Premier League over the years. We created a system of academies and every club spends about £3 million [$6 million] a year developing young players. But it hasn’t worked, because the availability for us to go out and buy the best stars is an easy thing.” Kids are being nurtured until age 18, and then told they’re not good enough.
It’s one thing for the EPL’s critics to say that its clubs have ruined England’s chances by buying in too many foreign players, but quite something else for its chairman to contradict his own chief executive, Richard Scudamore, who has long maintained that the two issues are not linked.
The league’s teams issued a statement saying: “These comments do not represent the collective view of the Premier League.” However, David Conn writes, Richards’ observations should at least “promote a genuine debate about how to balance the moneyed club game with a national framework for football development.”