hi

I reply to a number of points made recently -:

1. There is a move afoot by FIFA to limit the number of foreign players who can play for any one club in the European Club Championships.
There is some opposition to this pricipally by Chelsea and Arsenal whose squads are very foreign orientated.
This is already being addressed by some teams that would be affected - eg Manchester United Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool and Everton.

2. I agree that the inclusion of foreign players does limit the opportunities of English players, but the other side of the coin is that home players should learn more skills and get better experience from the foreign imports.

3. As another member pointed out there is already a move to try to find more young home players. Most senior clubs run academies where potential young proffessional footballers attend and there are some promising players coming through this system. This will take time but if the FA and the Premiere League can get together for once this could be much improved.

4. Capello has been kept on and in my opinion rightly so. He has a history of building good sides that compete well in competitions and is a great advocate of youth. I believe that is why he was kept on.

5. UK & Britain teams have been mooted on several occasions and the moves have all failed. It is the "satellite smaller countries " that refuse to join a united team. In truth though, would this really benefit England ??? IMHO no. If we could choose from the UK or Britain how many non-English players would feature ?? None as far as I could see. For instance Scottish football is more affected by foreign players than England and have hardly any home players of real International class. But unlike a guest above I do not relish the failure of other UK countries. Scotland has a history of playing great football and having highly motivated and talented players. Unfortunately this had deteriorated and I feel sorry about this.
By the way it is not just in Football that uniting the separate countries runs into difficulties occurs, it happens in other sports too. Though we do compete is Britain in the Olympics.

cheers

MikeL2