Blatter Questions Premier League Power
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has again questioned the Premier League’s effect on global football claiming that there is an unhealthy balance of power in comparison with other leagues.
He stated: ‘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.’
Blatter is also concerned about the influx of foreign players and owners into England’s top clubs that has accompanied the Premier League’s runaway commercial success.
He said he would attempt to convince Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore to impose a minimum requirement for home-grown talent on the pitch and warned that domestic owners might provide better stewardship through the economic downturn.
‘I want to try to, if not persuade him (Richard Scudamore), then at least influence him in his thoughts that to have a minimum of local players will enhance the quality of his league.
‘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.’
