Football Special Report: Sepp Blatter Says La Liga Is the Best League in the World
The president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, said that the Spanish La Liga is the best league in the world. Blatter pointed out the fact that 8 players from La Liga made it into the World XI in the FIFA awards, which was a sign of superiority of FIFA.
Blatter said that the strength of Spanish league was because of the fact that it features the most number of local players in the league. Also, the fact that all of the players in the starting XI of Spain’s World Cup squad were also from Spanish league was
a testimony to the domination of Spanish league. The FIFA president mentioned that no player from English Premier League made it into the best players of last year, which indicates the existence of problems. He also said that the English league should adopt
the policies of success from Spanish League.
In the recent awards in Zurich, eight players from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Spain-c3011’s domestic competition made it into the best team of last year. On the other hand, Italian Serie A had three players while English Premier League failed to have any footballer in that list. The EPL
is the best marketed league in the world but, according to Blatter, it has not been able to live up to its name.
One thing that Blatter failed to mention was that not many players from EPL have been named FIFA World Player of the year or been awarded the Ballon d’Or award. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Michael-Owen-c25355
won the Ballon d’Or in the early part of the last decade. This is really an underperformance considering the fact that La Liga has dominated the last decade. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ronaldinho-c31733, Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane are those players who reached these milestones
while playing their football in Spain.
Also, the English team has not been doing well in International tournaments. The major blame should go to the domestic league and the policies adopted by the English FA. These policies do not give enough protection to the local players which have resulted
in an influx of foreign players from other continents, especially Africa, and other European countries. Some big clubs play a few British players like Arsenal, who had no English players in their starting XI at one point. Even http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/John-Terry-c18895,
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Frank-Lampard-c14097 in their starting line-up while there are more African players in their squad.
The development of youngster is suffering, due to these policies, which has reflected on England’s performance in the World Cups and Euro Cups. The most embarrassing moment in the last decade was the time when England failed to even qualify in the Euro 2008.
Even their performance in the 2010 World Cup was abysmal, when they were beaten by a relatively younger German side, a product of German Bundesliga.
There are no rules regarding the number of international players in Spain, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Xabi-Alonso-c37045. However, some of the clubs are following good traditions and
helping their country in return. Recently, Barcelona adopted a policy of playing most of the players from their youth system, consequently providing the Spanish side with 6 players in their starting line-up. Also, some of the clubs like Athletic Bilbao do
not sign any players from outside a particular region of Spain. This is an assurance to the youngsters who have developed into fine players and won the World Cup and Euro Cup for their national side.
These are exactly the policies that Blatter is talking about and that should be adopted by English clubs. However, it will be hard to achieve as more and more foreign investors are increasing their stakes in EPL. Interference from English FA will be necessary
to implement some regulations for the promotion of local football in http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/England-c749.
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