Fifa President Sepp Blatter has again expressed his fear that the Premier League is damaging the game of football worldwide.
Blatter says he also believes that with just 4 winners of the Premier League since its inception, there is a power inbalance within the English game. And, in a wide ranging interview, he has repeated his concern that there are too many foreign players making their way to England.
Blatter recently went on record criticising the amount of foreign talent being used by the four English sides in the Champions League, though it’s since been proven that many of the figures he used to justify his remarks were wide of the mark.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Blatter said:
I have my concerns because the Premier League is the strongest in the world, definitely.
It is taking over in such a manner that the other leagues have difficulties to match it.
In a competition where two-thirds or three-quarters of the participants in the league play not to be first, but not to be relegated, there is something wrong.
On the subject of foreign players and overseas ownership, Blatter said he would be talking to Premier League supremo Richard Scudamore saying:
Foreign ownership is definitely a risk, it is not the basis of football, but here we can do nothing.
At the moment in the economic crisis, maybe the big investors and the big companies, will have less money to go in than local or regional investors who will be there because they identify themselves with the club.
What is it with Blatter and the Premier League?
Just because it is successful, he wants to try and find ways to weaken it.
He should be using the Premier League as a benchmark for the other leagues to learn from.
I don’t think he can stand anything being successful that he didn’t have a hand in.
He and his Uefa crony Platini are as bad as each other.
It is they who should be the concern of world football, not the PL.
I’ll have so say the level of play at the premiership is above all the other nowadays, but I don’t is damaging football worldwide, it is damaging English football itself with to many foreigners.