overseas players in premiership

and are you saying a player in the championship is on more than a player in seria a? if so i'd like to see some proof lol

Here is old article about how poor Italian football is http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article31594.ece

Why the clubs in the UK are richer than most is because of collective bargaining. In Spain 47% of the TV money goes to Barca & Real because it is every club for themselves.

I reckon the likes of Keving Phillips, James Beattie, Darren Huckerby etc will be on better wages than a lot of Seria A players obviousley I dont mean Kaka, Buffon, etc.

You make it sound like every African is a good player. England youth teams always seem to beat African nation when we play them because skill is not the be all & end all. I belive it can be a game breaker though.

Not too likely, there are decent African teams but none of them have really threatened to win a world cup. They produce star players but look at the size of the place and sheer numbers, the squads are usually filled with very mediocre players to go with the star names + indiscipline is still a problem.

Also, when did England last lose to an African team?

Spence is right, regarding money, it's very unbalanced, big clubs usually get the bulk = the rich get richer.

Look at the sponsorship for the Championship + i'd happily wager attendances in the Championship are not too disimilar to Serie A where they can be dreadful. When Boro were last down a division we had Merson, Emerson, Festa et al... not cheap and that was 10 years ago, other clubs down there now have good players.

A star player in the Championship would rather be playing in Serie A, but not for a small/provincial club on poorer wages. If Milan or Juve came knocking thats a different matter. But they could go and sign a player from South America or somewhere for a fraction of the price and wages and therefore less risk.

Anyway... Beckham, Ince, Owen have all done decent abroad in recent times. English football isn't that bad, there will always be talent and we don't fare too badly internationally... quarter finals at major tournaments isn't success but it's progress considering how we have been in recent decades... other 'big' nations suffer as well (Italy, France, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Germany have all underachieved in recent campaigns). We have problems but the state of our game is healthy domestically, especially compared to most, if not all, other countries. We just need to raise our game at big international tournamnents.


@Spence... interesting point about a test case. Regarding the druids beating France... I bet in a few years the majority of the frogs will be playing to a much higher standard than the Welsh, but at u-21 level there is still inexperience. Most countries would love the quality France have brought through over the past 15 years.

valid points lads

http://www.football365.com/john_nicholson/0,17033,8746,00.html

This is an interesting read that covers a few points made in here...

22 i thought the idea of having u21 was everyone had to be under 21

I'm not 100% sure, but i think there is a cutoff point whereby you have a period of grace if you turn 22 at a certain period of the season.

It's to mitigate for players turning 22 in the middle of tournaments. It'll be on the Fifa or Uefa website somewhere.

As Smog said it is all to do with a tournaments start dates against date of birth. Nigel Reo-Coker was 23 & he was still playing for the U21's in the summer, but once that tournement finished his time was up.

Or as they say in Africa stole

haha indeed