In 1965, Japan exported its first car to England. The smug English took one look at the Daihatsu Compagno and scoffed that it would never threaten the mighty British brands such as MG, Rover, Bentley and Aston Martin.

By 1978, the smug British, bogged down by strikes and all kinds of industrial action, saw their productivity in the motor industry drop to around 10 cars per employee. The Japanese worker was making 43 cars per employee.

Today, Britain has no auto industry. Its participation in Le Mans ended by Mazda, in F1 ended by Honda, and in world Rallying by Subaru and Mitsubishi. Jaguar and Aston Martin are owned by Americans and even the iconic Rolls-Royce and Bentley are owned by Germans.

'Arsene Wenger has said that if you are good enough, you’ll play irrespective of the passport you hold'


All because the British were far too smug to keep up with globalisation.

This brings me squarely to the debate about foreigners in English football. In view of all that has been said above, what fallacious rubbish of an argument is it to claim that national standards would be improved if we limited the number of foreigners in a team?

Arsene Wenger has said that if you are good enough, you’ll play irrespective of the passport you hold. Steven Gerrard has supported the idea of having quotas but is oblivious to the fact that his own manager at Liverpool has not, in his summer spending spree, brought a single English talent into his squad. Yet all pundits think Liverpool of vintage 2007 are far more capable of winning the Premier League than the vintage that won the Champions League.

Sir Alex Ferguson has touted English players, but he has cast his eye over so many talented foreigners - most recently from Portugal. In fact, like the British car industry, Sir Alex is the causation of the ruination of the British transfer market by paying inflated and exorbitant prices - which he himself admits - for the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves and Wayne Rooney and in giving them inflated salaries along with inflated egos. Sir Alex’s actions have in fact destroyed the capabilities of smaller English clubs to afford English talents.

No wonder they are looking to the likes of Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and Asia for talent.

But let’s get back to the issue of quotas. Or protectionism, as it could be called. Or even affirmative action for English players. Will it be good for the game? Will it, as envisioned by Sepp Blatter and supported by the likes of Gordon Brown and Gerrard, actually improve the English national team?

Let's keep the issue simple. The underlining argument supporting quotas is divided into a conceptual as well as a political argument.

First: If the number of Englishmen playing at the top level is increased, then there would be a greater number of Englishmen benefiting from regular football, thus improving standards and increasing the quantity available to play for the national team.

Second: From a political perspective, why should we allow a foreigner to take the job of an Englishmen? This was the rationale behind the old concept of quotas and (European Union laws aside), it is still the responsibility of every government to look after their own.

Answer to point one - In this age of globalisation, if you cannot compete with the best, you're finished. No amount of polishing will make a rock into a diamond. It is fallacy for the average player to say that if the league lowered its standards to allow me to play, I will be as good as a Cristiano Ronaldo or a Cesc Fabregas. Conversely, it’s a fallacy to think that if I downgraded my league to become average, so will other leagues in other nations downgrade themselves, too.

Then one day we will all be average and we can all compete with other average players on an international stage - that way I stand a chance of winning something. It’s the same argument that if you stick your head in the sand and close off your borders long enough, the world will pass you by and you'll be fine. Every lesson in history and economics has taught us that insulation will lead to regression - like the British motor industry. Which just confirms that to be the best you have to beat the best, not just in sport but in every facet of life including education, business, industry et cetera. QED.

Answer to point two - In an open economy, politics will always give way to money. It was reported that the recent  Arsenal v Manchester United game,drew a worldwide television audience of one billion eyeballs. For years the Football Association has sought to globalise the English league and the ever-increasing global TV revenue has suggested that it has achieved its aim.

And let's be frank here - if I want to invite the world to come into my house for dinner and expect them to pay an arm and a leg for it, I'd better have a world-class cuisine ready for them. Bangers and mash will simply not do. A global audiences of one billion will pay subscription fees and stay up till the wee hours of the morning to see Arsene's Arsenal and Sir Alex's Manchester United play beautiful football.

They want to be wowed by Cesc's passing. They want to gasp at Ronaldo's step-overs. If the Premier League  served up 11 thugs frolicking around in the mud, they'd switch to La Liga in a heartbeat, and with that switch, the Chancery can wave goodbye to several billion pounds of direct and indirect investment and revenue from football. The British economy today derives substantial benefit as a result of the influx of money brought in by football.

Clubs openly court foreign ownership because of the money they can bring. All top clubs, save Arsenal who are awfully close to it, are foreign owned. Rafa relies on Americans George Gillett and Tom Hicks to finance his assault on the league. Chelsea would have gone belly-up if Russian Roman Abramovich decided not to venture to London. All of these me are in it for profit. None of these men owe any Englishmen a living.

They are there to finance winners. If an Englishman can do the job, so be it - on the pitch or off it. But sad to note that among the top tier of football managers, not one is English. When Martin Jol was sacked, not a single football commentator even suggested Spurs hire an Englishman as his replacement. All recognised that not one among their countrymen was capable of delivering the kind of glory the club was pressured to deliver.

I recently had a deal managed by a well-known Swiss bank. The people who acted in the transaction were all MBA holders from top worldwide universities. Of the 13 people involved in the deal, not one was Swiss. All were there because of the quality they possessed as individuals and collectively as a team. It’s the same with football.

The English schoolboy who wants to make it into the first team of a club but sees an import standing in his way faces the same problem as any other worker facing the influx of foreign talents brought on by the global economy. The bottom line is that he either improves then makes it, or opts out for a job he can do to support himself. The world does not owe him a living. Change that philosophy and football will go the same way as the British auto industry.

To revert to protectionism, quotas and affirmative action is to regress from what the English league is today - world class.