Love The Game

History:

Italian Football is a world super power within the game, they were the first to have a league with many foreign stars and with a league in the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s that far advanced any league that ever existed prior. The national team to has a great tradition with 4 World Cups (1934, 1938, 1982, 2006), the only team to have won more is Brazil with 5. Along with this Italian Clubs have won 27 major European trophies, making them the most successful footballing nation in Europe. Like any super power within world football they have a certain philosophy and style of play that they have played with and developed for many decades. Their philosophy is known as ‘Catenaccio’ it’s a system that is based on a solid defensive structure, Catenaccio is used less now in the modern game but was still used by some famous coaches like Cesare Maldini, Dino Zoff and the legendary Giovanni Trapattoni who used this system in 2002 World Cup and 2004 European Championships. Catenaccio has obviously over the years developed and transformed into a different style within the modern game, but Italian football clubs are renowned for there defensive style and slower style of play compared to other nations. The meaning of Catenaccio is ‘door-bolt’ and it means a highly organized and structured defensive line which is intended on preventing goals. This style of play grabbed the headlines of world football when it was successfully produced by the Inter Milan team in the 1960’s, the manager who implemented this style of play was an Argentinean called Helenio Herrera. Inter Milan were very successful with this tactic as were AC Milan in the 1960’s. The formation used for this was a 1-4-4-1 format with a sweeper playing in front of the goalkeeper and behind the defence ready the clear up any loose balls, nullify the striker or double mark one of the attacking opposition. This style of football did cause a very dull match, with lack of goals and not many attacks, but it was effective. Until the new law of offside came into the game, the old style of Catenaccio was used by most clubs in Italy, but now with the change in the rules the sweeper is deemed surplus to requirements and newer hybrid formations of this style of play have come into force now. Until the emergence of Total football this style was deemed a way of future football. But still to this day Catenaccio is philosophy that some coaches use, in the 1990’s Argentina and Cameroon used this, in the 2000’s Italy, France, Greece, Scotland, Real Madrid and even Brazil have used this to a certain degree of success.

The modern game was brought to Italy in the 1890’s by an English man named James Richardson Spensley. He set up an already existing sports club called Genoa cricket club and merged football into the club, he set up a team and became there manager, the rest is history some may say. But there is evidence that another football team was setup before Genoa football club, in 1887 a man called Edoardo Bosio, a merchant worker in the British textile industry, returned back to Italy and founded Torino football and cricket club, this club later merged with another and named themselves Internazionale Football Club Torino. The Italian Federation of Gymnastics (F.N.G.I) had organised a couple of competitions in the mid 1890’s and they were a successful, in 1898 the Federation Italienne du Football (FIF-FIGC), in that year the first National Championship was organised in the format of regional tournaments and then playoffs which was eventually won by Genoa Cricket & Football club. They were the first power in Italian football with league victories in 1899, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1904. The Italian league joined F.I.F.A in 1905 and officially moved to a league structure based in regions. Not until 1929 did a national league structure occur, the first winners were Internazionale (Inter Milan). The national league was obviously forsaken during World War II, but after the war the first team to win the National league was Torino who went on to win four in a row. But the most successful team by far in Italian league history is Juventus with 27 titles, second is AC Milan with 17 league titles, next is Internazionale with 15 titles to their name, they are known as the big three in the league.

With many of the big clubs being situated in the same city there are some big rivalries, with the Rome derby (Roma vs. Lazio), the Milan derby (AC Milan vs. Internazionale) and the Turin derby (Torino vs. Juventus) to name just a few. This can result in an intense history between fans that can lead to trouble, hooliganism in the Italian game has been rife of late. With the death of a policeman in a game between Catania and Palermo on the 2nd of February 2007 due to rioting between opposing fans, the F.I.G.C suspended all games indefinitely. Then in early November of 2007 unfortunately a Lazio fan was shot dead by a policeman which resulted in rioting in several cities and many footballing icons criticising the way Italian football was being handled, Palermo manager Francesco Guidolin said ‘Football can not last much longer like this, There will be no joy in it.’. With many stadiums not being all seater this does invoke many problems within the Italian game, English football had the same problems in the 1980’s and made drastic changes to their game with the introduction to all seater stadiums and better security within the stadium its self. This is something that the F.I.G.C is mandating a report into now to estimate the costs of this and the adverse effects that will implement upon their league. With hooliganism being rife in the leagues it is certainly required for a control to be had on the fans once they are in the stadiums and with the current stability of the game in Italy being so uncertain many issues need to be looked into before Italian football can really move on.

Italian football has been involved in many highs and lows, the highs being 4 World Cup victories and 36 European club cups. But the lowest point in their history has to be the two match fixing scandals that made a huge impact upon the game. The first scandal was in 1980 it is referred to as the ‘Totonero’ affair, this scandal was involved in match fixing. There was a full investigation into this scandal which resulted in 20 players being banned from football ranging from 3 months to 6 years, President of Milan Felice Colombo was given a lifetime ban from the game and Thomas Fabbretti of Bologna was given a year long ban. It was not just people who were prosecuted in the investigation, Milan and Lazio were demoted from Serie A, Avellino, Bologna and Perugia were deducted 5 points. Juventus were absolved, but in many opinions there is much doubt about the clubs innocence in the scandal. The ironic part of this whole affair is that Italy’s star player, Paolo Rossi of Perugia, who had his ban reduced from 3 years to 2 years, enabling him to be able to play in the 1982 World Cup, where he became top scorer in the tournament and winning the world cup in the process for Italy. Following the victory of the Italian team, it was declared that everyone associated in the match fixing affair were given an amnesty except Felice Colombo. The second investigation into match fixing is commonly known as Calciopoli or Moggiopoli within the media. It was uncovered by Italian police in May 2006, again it was the major teams that were involved, Champions Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina respectively. The police had intercepted a host of telephone conversations implementing team managers and referees, the teams were accused of fixing games by making favourable selections for themselves. The one man’s name that kept being mentioned in the investigations was Luciano Moggi, General Director of Juventus from 1994-2006, he was involved in many of the telephone conversations with numerous officials in Italian football to influence certain referee appointments in certain games. Moggi later resigned as General Director of Juventus after they were declared champions in 2006, he was found guilty and banned from football for 5 years, with a further recommendation to FIGC president that he be banned for life from having a membership within the FIGC at any level. After two appeals the clubs involved were sentenced, Juventus were to be stripped of there 2005 and 2006 Titles whilst being thrown out of the champions League and relegated to Serie B with a 9 point deduction. That was the heaviest punishment dealt to any of the clubs involved in the scandal, AC Milan were deducted 8 points and made to play one home game behind close doors, Fiorentina were deducted 15 points with two home games behind close doors and kicked out of the Champions league, Lazio were deducted 3 points with two home games behind closed doors and kicked out of UEFA Cup, finally Reggina were deducted 11 points, fined £68,000 and the Chairman, Pasquale Foti, fined £20,000 and banned from football for two and a half years. Some appeals are still being processed to this day and the investigation is still on going.

The Italian league has always been one of the powers in European football, but in the past 5 years there has been a dramatic change in power. The English Premiership has signed a new television deal worth 1.7 billion pounds recently, this has made the English league the richest in the world and more money for the English clubs. This has seen much foreign talent move to the Premiership, the Spanish league and Italian league have been left behind from this, with the match fixing scandal and Italy’s biggest club, Juventus, struggling and building a new era, you could say that Italian football is in decline. But most Italians would point out the fact that the National team are current world champions and AC Milan are current world club champions, you would have to agree with their evidence.

The Italian league relies on pay-TV for around 60 to 70 per cent of its revenue, comparing to 40 to 50 per cent in the English league it is obvious to see the void in revenue, in December 2007 a new complex law passed by decree with little debate and no vote in parliament, which relates to a big shake up of broadcasting rights that will strengthen every club in Serie A and Serie B. There will be legal challenges to this and the law will not take effect until 2010-11 season.

Greatest Player:

There is not an outstanding candidate for this nomination, Italy have had many great players to name but a few, there is Luigi Riva, Gianni Rivera, Giacinto Facchetti, Dino Zoff, Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini even current players like Francesco Totti. But the man that I have chosen as Italy’s greatest ever is Giuseppe Meazza, he had the San Siro named after him in his honour. Meazza has a record second to none in the Italian league he scored 245 goals in 348 games for Inter and 33 goals in 53 games for Italy, that is an amazing tally for a striker that was only 5 foot 6 inches. Born on the 23rd August 1910 in Milan, Meazza was a the first Italian footballer to be recognised worldwide, he was the first player to be personally sponsored. His strongest attributes were his leadership skills, accurate shooting, dribbling and his passing ability. He also had a controversial side, in folklore he was known to of slept in a brothel the night before home games. Meazza was top scorer in the Italian League on three different occasions (1930,1936,1938), he won three championships for Inter (1930,1938,1940) and an Italian Cup (1939). He still holds a record to this very day, he scored the most goals in Serie A on his debut season at the age of 19 with 31 goals. The year before Meazza at the age of 18 scored 38 goals in 29 games, but Serie A was not established until the following year. When he retired in the 1947 season he had scored a total of 268 goals in 443 games which is third in the all-time top scorer list in the Italian Championship.

He is one of Italy’s most successful players, he won the 1934 and 1938 World Cup, the later he was captain. One of his most famous goals was in the 1938 World Cup semi-final against Brazil, Italy were awarded a penalty with Meazza taking it and scoring, but during his run up to the ball his shorts fell down, he kept his cool and held his shorts up and still scored the penalty which sent Italy to the final. Meazza had a fantastic record for his country in goal scoring which fell in hand why Italy only lost six games during his 53 caps.

After his retirement he went on to become Internazionale manager but to no avail unfortunately with no any serious trophies won for the club. He continued to be in football until his death in Rapallo, Italy on the 21st of August 1979, he was 68 years old. He might have been in an era of old but with two World Cup victories, a goal scoring record rated with the best of them and the first recognised famous footballer Giuseppe Meazza will go down in history as one of the greatest Italian footballers of all-time.

History:

The first thing you think of when Dutch football is mentioned is Total Football. The term is well understood when speaking about the great national teams of the 70’s and late 80’s the philosophy of total football is that any player can replace any other on the team in any position, the way this can be done is through training from an early age developing the players awareness of positional space and it creates good technique. Total football was created by a man called Jack Reynolds back in the 1910’s but was built upon and refined by Rinus Michels while at Ajax back during the 1970’s. Total football made its mark upon the world in 1972 when Ajax beat Internazionale 2-0 in the European Cup Final. It is best summed up by the actual players who played this style in its most effective way, Barry Hulshoff, Ajax defender, said ‘It was about making space , coming into space, and organising space-like architecture on the football pitch’ this is how all the team understood total football. Johan Cruyff explains the total football philosophy ‘Simple football is the most beautiful. But playing simple football is the hardest thing’. With this form of football it took the national side to the World Cup finals in 1974 and 1978 where unfortunately they both lost, firstly to West Germany 2-1 in ‘74’ and then Argentina 2-1 in ‘78’ respectively. The manager of the national team during the first tournament was Rinus Michels, the man who refined total football. The manager who took them to their 2nd final was an Austrian called Ernst Happel. But there is one dominant proponent player to this type of football, that being the great Johan Cruyff, who was recently voted the greatest European player of all time, he represented everything about the new wave of Dutch football. With the two final losses in the 70’s it seemed like only a matter of time until the national team won a major tournament, this eventually happened on the 25th of June 1988 in West Germany, with a 2-0 victory over the U.S.S.R., the goals came from their two stars of the time, Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten, top goal scorer in the tournament with 5 goals. The win was even more memorable for the team due to the person who coached them, a certain Mr Rinus Michels, this was a fitting tribute to the man who brought total football to the national team. That is the first and only major tournament until now the Netherlands have won. But they are always one of the favourites when going into any tournament.

Dutch football clubs have a very good reputation for their youth academies and system of training, this is amazing when you consider that Holland has a population of 16.5 million and are one of the strongest footballing nations in the world. The most successful club in Dutch football is Ajax they have won the national league 29 times and the European Cup 4 times, 3 times in a row 71-73. With their youth academies strongly established and specific training methods that are tried and tested, they are known to have the most organised and forward thinking structure in European football. Many Premier league teams have looked at the Dutch method when developing or setting up their youth academies. The Dutch football league is deemed to belong within the 2nd echelon of European football, with their rich history and very good foundation this can be seen as a slight upon their reputation. However unfortunate this is becoming more the case, this is due to a gap in investment in the leagues other than the English, Italian and Spanish. The Eredevisie (Dutch League) signed a deal with Versatel in August 2005 for a reported 91.5 million Euros (£65.7 million) on a three year deal. When compared to the English Premier league deal of 1.7 billion pounds signed in 2007 on a three year deal that is a huge gap. Due to this most of the Dutch talent has moved abroad and nearly all the national team play in foreign leagues. At the same time this not much of a difference when looking back in time, even Johan Cruyff left to play overseas with Barcelona. This obviously has an effect on the Eredevisie standard but with the clubs academies there is no other country in Europe able to cope with the out flux of talent other than Holland.

There is a darker side to Dutch football too, that dark side is hooliganism. There have been many incidents in Dutch football history when hooliganism has reared its ugly head. It is common belief that the first hooligan activity in Holland was in 1974 when a mass riot began between Feyenoord fans and Tottenham Hotspur fans during the UEFA Cup Final. Since then numerous Dutch clubs have been associated with hooliganism such as Ajax, NAC Breda, PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord, FC Utrecht, FC Den Bosch, FC Groningen and ADO Den Haag. There is a huge rivalry between Ajax and Feyenoord, this is predominantly due to the fact that they are from the two biggest city rivals, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The most violent encounter between the fans was the Battle of Beverwijk on 23rd March, 1997, in which numerous people were injured and a man called Carlo Picornie was killed, he was a leader of Ajax‘s hooligan gang. Then on 26th April, 1999, eighty fans were arrested when Feyenoord supporters started a riot after loosing a cup match against NAC Breda. Then in the season of 2002-2003 fighting broke out between fans of Ajax and FC Utrecht and later in the season between Ajax and Feyenoord fans again. The latest incident occurred in 2006 when Dutch fans rioted against French fans. The authorities have tried many times to control this, with indoor games and home fan only games but the rivalries are ingrained now and will take a very long time to diminish.

Greatest Player:

He is known to be their greatest ever player and voted the greatest European footballer of the century by IFFHS. Born April the 25th, 1947 in Amsterdam, he is named Hendrik Johannes Cruiff, spelled Cruyff outside of the Netherlands. He was named European Footballer of the Year (1971, 1973, 1974), which is a joint record shared with Michel Platini (1983, 1984, 1985) and Marco Van Basten (1988, 1989, 1992). He played for the famous Dutch team of the 70’s and was the focus point of total football, he could play striker, second striker, winger or midfielder, he is referred to as ‘the total footballer’. At the height of 5tf 11in he was not well known for his physical prowess but certainly had great intelligence, he was the first to drop deep from a centre forward position and move out to the wings with devastating effect. He was known for his technical ability combined with his speed and acceleration, this ability in conjunction with his vision made him a player that other teams feared. Sports writer David Miller dubbed him ‘Pythagoras in boots’ for his acute passing ability, he wrote ‘Few have been able to exact, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric control on a match from one penalty area to the other’. Cruyff also perfected a move that was named after himself, where he would look up for the cross but instead of kicking the ball he would drag the ball behind his planted foot with the inside of his other foot and turn 180 degrees then accelerate away the opposite way from the defender.

Johann played for six different clubs in his illustrious career, those clubs were, Ajax, Barcelona, Los Angeles Aztecs, Washington Diplomats, Levante and Feyenoord. But the two clubs he will be best remembered at are Ajax and Barcelona, he won Ajax 3 European Cups, League title 8 times, KNVB Cup 5 times and the Duper Cup twice. He started his career with Ajax where he scored 190 goals in 240 appearances, during his time there he made Ajax the greatest team in the world, after Ajax win against Internazionale in 1972 European Cup Final where he scored both goals where he single-handed pulled them apart, he was seen as the greatest player on the planet and made a move to Barcelona for 6 million guilders, around 2 million dollars in 1973. There were many suitors for his signature one of them being Real Madrid, but he chose Barcelona because he could not play for a club associated with Franco. This was not the only time that politics had a decider on Cruyff’s decision to play football, in 1978 World Cup he refused to play for the National team due the tournament being held in Argentina, who at the time had suffered a military coup only two years previously. During his playing career for Barcelona he played 143 games scoring 48 goals, he also won a league title with them, during that season winning one of his European Footballer of the year awards. Then at the age of 32 he made the move over the Atlantic and signed a lucrative deal with Los Angeles Aztecs, he played one season with them and another season with Washington Diplomats. With a brief spell at Spanish outfit Levante, Cruyff decided to return back to Ajax and played two seasons and was not offered another contract, angered he signed for bitter rivals Feyenoord and won the league and cup double with them before he retired from his illustrious playing career. Playing 522 games and scoring 291 goals is a very special record, he finished his International career with 33 goals in only 48 games, which is a very good ratio.

He was also a very successful manager during his time at Ajax and Barcelona. Two years after retiring Cruyff returned to Ajax as manager and had a very successful time, winning the European Cup Winners Cup . The following year he returned to Barcelona to manage a very talented squad which won him 4 Spanish leagues (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994), a European Cup Winners Cup (1989), a European Cup (1992), Spanish Cup (1990). He is Barcelona’s longest serving manager as well as their most successful manager, he is now an advisor to the current Barcelona chairman, Juan Laporta. His nickname with the fans is ‘El Salvador’ (The Saviour), that is the reputation he holds within one of the greatest clubs in the world. He is also renowned for the famous number he wore, he was the first player to have a specific number outside the starting eleven. He wore the number 14 shirt for every club he played for, he is best known for wearing the number 14 shirt while playing for the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup. He is Dutch football’s greatest ever player, for his flamboyance and controversial ways he will always be remembered as one of football’s true greats.

Dutch Football has seen many good players come and go, the likes of Cruyff has been mentioned but other great players to, like Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Dennis Bergkamp, Ronald Koeman and Johann Neeskens to name but a few. Dutch football certainly has its own identity with the philosophy of total football and the way they nurture their young talented footballers. With such a stable structure in hand they don’t have much to worry about their identity within the game ever being lost. One would think that it is only a matter of time until another great National team will be gracing the World Cup or European Championships.

Since its creation in 1992 The Premiership has been making great steps in development, it is the strongest league in the world at this current stage. It has an annual turnover of £1.765 billion, which makes it comparable to the N.B.A which is the richest sports league in the world, seeming that The Premiership only has 20 teams and the N.B.A has 30 teams it is a great complement. It is a huge difference when you compare it to the 1980’s, it was the darkest moment in English football history, the stadiums were out of date and hazardous, hooliganism was rife within most topflight clubs. English teams were band from European competition following the death of 39 fans at Heysel Stadium in Belgium just before kick-off between Liverpool and Juventus for the 1985 European Final. Then in 1989, 96 fans died and 150 were injured at Hillsborough due to over crowding in the FA Cup semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. There was a report made by Lord Justice Taylor strongly recommending that all clubs should have all-seater stadia, due to the Taylor report all topflight clubs were faced with huge costs in developing their grounds to meet certain safety recommendations, up to 10 teams in 1988 were threatening to break away to generate revenue from Television rights. It was deemed that extreme measures were required to develop the English game.

On the 17th July 1991 The Founder Members Agreement was signed, this entailed that The League would have commercial independence from the Football League and FA, giving them full rights on its broadcast and sponsorship deals. On the 20th of February 1992 the then current First division teams resigned from the football league as a whole and three months later the Premiership was established as a limited company. The Premiership signed their first broadcasting deal with Sky TV in 1992 in an initial deal worth £191 million over a five year deal. The latest deal that runs from 2007-2010 seasons between broadcasters Sky TV and Setanta TV is a reported £1.7 billion. Research company Deloitte who annually release figures of clubs turnover in the world, presently have 8 English clubs in the top 20 richest clubs in the world, until recently a Premiership club had held top spot for over a decade. Another major source of income for the Premiership is gate receipts, the average attendance in 2005-2006 was 34,364 for league matches, the average is above that of the Italian Serie A and the Spanish La Liga, but somewhat surprisingly second behind the German Bundesliga. But shows the growth of the league since its founding in 1992 when the average attendance was only 21,126. With the growth of crowds obviously ticket prices have risen, to obscene levels some have said, unfortunately clubs do not publish there average ticket prices at this moment, but on a rough estimate clubs have put prices up by 600 per cent since the 1989-1990 season. Prices for this season are higher than ever, for example look at Arsenal, for category B games they charge between £32 to £66 and in category A games they charge £46 to £96. This is a drastic difference when you compare it to Liverpool who mostly charge £32 for category B games and £34 for category A games. The game is slowly being taken away from the working man.

The Premiership is the most watched league in the whole world, with over 200 countries broadcasting their games, which is the reason behind the huge money going around the clubs at the moment. The television revenue is distributed by the Premier League, 50 per cent of total money is given as an equal share basis to the 20 clubs in the league, while relegated clubs are given a share but in the form of a parachute payment. Also 25 per cent is paid as facility fees, which is determined by the amount of appearances made on television and the final 25 per cent is paid in merit payments, depending on where the club finishes in the league. There is also another side of the Premiership, last year they donated 5 per cent of there domestic broadcast revenue , that’s £20 million, to fund grass roots football initiatives. In late 2006 it was announced by an independent agency that The Premier league is one of the leading contributors in good causes in the U.K totalling £30,484,408 in 2005. It is Projected that this season they will contribute around £50 million to good causes.

The structure of The Premier League is a complicated structure, it is operated as a corporation that is owned by its 20 member clubs. A total of 40 clubs have been members of the Premier League between 1992-2006. Seven of these clubs have been members of the League since its inception. The group comprises Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
Each club is deemed as a shareholder with one vote, this vote is used on such issues as rule changes and contracts. The clubs are the ones who nominate and elect a Chairman, Chief Executive and board of Directors to oversee the daily operations of the league. The FA as mentioned before does not have day-today control on of operations but does have a veto power as a special shareholder when elections are made for the Chairman, Chief Executive and Rule changes. Also the Premier League sends representatives to UEFA’s European Club Forum, they are responsible for electing three members to UEFA’s Club Competition Committee, who are involved in operations in UEFA competitions such as Champions League and UEFA Cup.

With such heavy investment from overseas and foreign owners of clubs now it is obvious that the Premier League will have foreign players too. There are currently over 337 foreign players registered to Premier League teams, the total number of countries represented is 66. In 1992 there was just 11 non-British or Irish footballers in the Premier League. On the 26th December 1999 Chelsea were the first team to field an entirely foreign starting line-up, on the 14th February 2005 Arsenal were the first club to announce a completely foreign 16 man squad for a match. That is a drastic climb over the last 16 years, there are pro’s and cons that comes with this, obviously you get some very good foreign players that add technique and class to the league but it also detrimental to the National team also, with the lack of English talent that is not given enough first team experience because of this. It can also be seen that a lot of foreign players have been brought into the league due to the amount of foreign coaches over the last decade, at this moment there are 5 non-British managers in the league.

The most successful team in Premier League history is Manchester United managed by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. They have won the title 9 times out of 15 and have never finished below 3rd place, with Sir Alex there have only been another three managers to win the Premier League non of them being an English man, they are Kenny Dalglish, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, two English mangers have come in 2nd place and they are Ron Atkinson and Kevin Keegan. With so many good managers obviously there will be some very good players, there are only two players who have scored in every season since the inception of the Premiership, that is Gary Speed and Ryan Giggs. The Highest goal scorer in Premiership history is Alan Shearer with 260 goals for Southampton, Blackburn and Newcastle respectively, finishing among the top ten goal scorers in 10 out of his 14 seasons in the Premier League. Shearer also held the highest transfer fee paid in the world at the time which was £15 million from Blackburn to Newcastle. The Highest fee paid by any Premiership club is Chelsea’s Andrei Shevchenko with his transfer from AC Milan for £30 million in 2006. The highest fee paid for a teenager is £30 million by Manchester United to Everton for Wayne Rooney, this is based on bonuses and instalments.

The Premier League has offered so much to fans all over the world and im sure it will continue to do so for many years to come. With the European powers pushing for a limit on foreign players per team, it might well change again and we will only see the top foreign players grace our pitches soon, with more English talent been given a chance to prove their worth. There is no doubt that with the money that is generated the standard of football will only get better. Long live the Premier League.