Cruyff: You use too many foreign stars (Yes, that's Barca's Dutch legend)

19 May 2009 08:45
Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff has launched a scathing attack on English football ahead of next week's Champions League final against Manchester United. He claimed the European success of the Premier League's top four has been bought at the expense of homegrown English talent and urged FIFA to limit the number of foreign players a side can field. The man who served Barcelona both as player and European Cup-winning coach, said: 'However much English teams reach finals or semi-finals, I'm sorry, I do not buy it. And I don't buy it because of the players they have out on the pitch, rather than because of the style they adopt. 'The vast majority of them have been brought in from abroad. There are very, very few Englishmen playing in the big English clubs. 'You only have to look at the Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United squads to realise that. The English national team missing out on the last European Championships and football ingeneral suffers as a result of them signing so many foreign players.Doing this weakens the competition because it is impossible for everyplayer they sign to play.' Manchester United won the treblein 1999 with a core of homegrown talent but next Wednesday in Rome it will be Barcelona trying to scoop their third trophy of the season witha side full of locally produced players. Coach Pep Guardiolacould field as many as eight products of the club's youth system withgoalkeeper Victor Valdes, defenders Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol,midfielders Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Sergi Busquets andforwards Lionel Messi and Bojan Krkic all coming through La Masia the club's famous school of excellence. Writing his weekly column in El Periodico, Cruyff said: 'Next month there are elections to the European parliament. I would like to see a candidate pick up on the 'six and five' idea. I would like a candidate to promise to fight for it, to change the law on this.' Barcelona famously lost Cesc Fabregas to the Premier League when Arsenal signed him as a 16-year-old and Cruyff backed legislation that would force teams to field at least six national players and help prevent the transfer of younger players. He added: 'The national teams would be improved, players would be more committed to the clubs where they have grown up and fans would feel more identified with theirteam. And, as a consequence, you'd also stop the trafficking of children thousands of footballing hopefuls taken from poor countries of whom only a tiny proportion makeit. The rest? Where are they now, what is their life like?'  

Source: Daily_Mail