Is Wenger Not Fergie Right In The ‘Johnny Foreigner’ Row ?
Henry Kibirige
This week Fergie celebrated his 21st year as a United manager. Arguably the best manager United have ever had, the Scotsman has built three world beating squads, and is currently working on his fourth.
His squads down the years included the talents of Beckham, the presence of Cantona and the leadership of Roy Keane. They all had great strength in depth and were worth the money to watch.
As well as all this, Fergie welcomed players from all over the globe. The likes of Dwight Yorke and Kanchelskis spring to mind. But even at these rapidly changing times, Fergie has always had a fair percentage of English players in the squad.
As Arsenal continue to kidnap young six year old boys from Papa Nu Guinea, the issue of foreign players in football is getting more hotly debated. Sepp Blatter has come up with the idea of a ‘home base’ player rule. This would mean that clubs in all top flight leagues would have to have a certain number of players from that actual country. This idea, has been backed passionately by Fergie himself.
To be honest, I am a bit in-between on this. I just can’t make up my mind on whether it would really be that good. Let’s first of all look at the advantages of having a lot of home grown players in a squad. Those who agree with Blatter’s idea would probably say that fans relate better to a home grown or local player than a foreign one, and they have a point. United fans love the fact that Gary Neville, Wes Brown and Paul Scholes are Mancs. It just feels better to hear a Manc accent during a post-match interview than a stuttered foreign one. It’s almost like a breath of fresh air.
A local lad would also find it easier to get motivated for big derby games. Before Patrice Evra came to United, he probably had some sort of idea about the rivalry between City and United. But he never really understood it until he made his debut at Eastlands. Evra was probably already motivated as it was his first game and he wanted to impress, but if you compared him to Neville, you would realise that Evra didn’t have the little bit more passion you get for a derby game. He didn’t really understand how much the game meant to the fans and the team.
Having someone local means that you are almost guaranteed a heart on sleeve performance in the derbies. If a manager buys a home grown player, he won’t have to go through the malarkey of having to wait a season for the player to settle in. Ronaldo came to Old Trafford and although he had an impressive debut against Bolton, the rest of the season meant a series of young and inexperienced performances. Ronaldo had to take time to settle in and get used to his new surroundings away from the Madeira sunshine. A few seasons later though, Ronaldo’s one of the best players in the world.
Even though a home grown player might be moving to a new team with new tactics, the settling-in stage is still expected to be a lot shorter than the one of a foreigner.
One reason why a home grown player settles in faster is that they won’t have language problems (unless you’re stupidly moving to Merseyside were their only language is ‘rob shoelaces’ and ‘beat up that granny’). It will be so much easier for a manager to have a half time team-talk without having to have three translators and a Chinese dictionary to help foreigners understand what he’s saying.
However, this point can be argued as not all managers are home based themselves. So it will spark up the issue of whether there are enough home based managers. That of course, is a different matter.
An English club is an English club. Clubs have to keep their tradition. This can be done by their style of play, their kits, their name etc… Fans also argue that it must be done by the nationality of their players. Fair enough. English club, English players. So you look at our friends Arsenal and conclude that they might as well wear green kits and be called Nigeria. The number of black players in that team is staggering, especially as it’s an English club. The cockneys say, “ Brapppp, pop brat ala Arsenal yyyeah. Brappp bullet brap yo y’all yo yo brapppp. We have Walcott yyyyyeah, and Hoyte. Brapppp, we defo English.”
I thank Ian Wright for that quote, but if you’re normal person, you will find it hard to understand that fine piece of punditry. It basically means that Arsenal fans say that they DO have English players in their squad, and these are Theo Walcott and Justin Hoyte. But how many more?
The issue of foreigners will always bring up the club vs. country row. Steve McLaren would find it a lot easier to go to a game and expect to see the majority of players to be contenders for the In-ger-land set up. All these points, swing me slightly to the support of the home grown player rule. But these following points neutralise me again. Does it actually matter whether a player is foreign or not? Does it make any sort of difference. A question being asked is whether there are that many good English players to go around. This further leads to ask whether they really are that good. Excluding the English players already playing for United, Steven Gerrard is the only player that would be good enough to play for United.
If some of these English players really are that good, why is it 41 years still counting? I think a conclusion would be that the media are over estimating a fairly average England team.
So this means having to agree with some Arsenal fans. I think Wenger only goes to the foreign market simply because the English players aren’t good enough, and that there aren’t enough good ones to share around.
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 10:14 am)
I am an Arsenal fan, Ive been at your site afew times and honestly I thought you are better than that. I wont get into your remarks about the number of black players at Arsenal and how staggered you are at their amount.
Your club has had a golden generation of home grown “British” players Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and the Nevilles but lately you’ve not produced other than average players like Oshea, Brown, Richardson and Fletcher.
Arsenal are operating in a different market to United and Fergie is a clever manager who knows that limiting the number of foreigners would give his team an advantage not for that fact that he gives chances to homegrowns but because he can go and purchase British players like Ferdinand(£30m), Hargreaves(£17m), Carrick (£18m) and Rooney (£31m) while Arsenal have fielded a team costing £30m in its entirity & its topping the league
Beckham was replaced with Ronaldo. This year you have bought Anderson to replace Scholes, Nani to replace Giggs & in afew years you might be as foreign and as Black as Arsenal!
Arsenal’s scouting network is the best in the world & it has bought the club worldclass players for next to nothing prices like Toure, Fabregas, Van Persie, Clichy, Eboue and Adebayor
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 10:48 am)
“The number of black players in that team is staggering, especially as it’s an English club.”
This is pure unadulterated racism and should not be tolerated on what is a usually intelligent website. I hope that the site’s editors will do the right thing and remove these appalling remarks.
Just what were you thinking???
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 11:13 am)
I echo Elbow’s comments. This is an appalling piece that ranges from general xenophobia to out and out racism.
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 6:21 pm)
Hello , Fabregas the King from InsideArsenal Blog, I am happy to debate the issues but when authors state that a club that I support kidnap 6 yr old boys from Papua New Guinea, I cease to see the funny side. Iam very disappointed that Absolutely United felt unable to distance itself from comments such as these. The slurs on merseysiders and suggestion that a chinese dictionary would be needed is an insult to your supporters in the Far east that have made your club rich. I liken this stance to the worst excesses of the British Empire.
Well the ManU empire is to be respected, but not when some of it’s supporters cannot debate such a difficult topic objectively without resorting to petty gutter racist undertones. Football is tribal by the passions that it incites, add race to the mix, and one can see why people are literally dieing to get out of Manchester.
My article “Could Player Quotas be racist?” can be viewed at www.insidearsenal.co.uk I would be happy to debate the pro and cons with Mr Kibirige if he feels able to, but until then, I leave an extract of my article….
“…What would be the response to a policy that said there must be a minimum of five white players in every team, or why choose white? let us go the whole hog and say, there must be at least five black players in every team. Or even more ridulous, let us impose a quota of three gay players per team. I think that you get my point. If Sepp Blatter and fergie_scum had said, and I hasten to point out, they have not, that there must be a minimum of seven white players in every club team, I believe that there would have been an outcry. right or wrong?
If my premise is correct then the outcry would be, on one hand, that we are pandering to extreme racists, and on the other we are discriminating against the minorities. But you cannot, I suggest, have it both ways. A quota, is a quota, is a quota no matter how you dress it up. The only basis for wide acceptance is that it must not be offensive or prejudicial. Offensive and prejudicial are the foundation stones of racism, homophobia, religious fundamentalism or any other doctrine that is designed to persecute and exclude people who do not conform with that system. The very imposition of a national quota may seem reasonable in multicultural societies, however it coould be used in racist ways in other countries/cultures. I am not about to suggest which countries or cultures I am alluding to, but I am sure you get the point.
I will support any system that encourages the principles of fair play and fair access. When dealing with disciplines that are talent or skill based, unfortunately the harsh fact of life must reign, and that is if you are going to make the grade, then you get there on merit and merit alone. So the applicants had better work hard on improving their skills, if they wish to be a success. I want to see the best footballers play for The Arsenal, irrespective of colour, creed or kin. I rest my case, and would suggest that to do anything else could open the quota system to covert or overt racism…”
Fabregas the King of InsideArsenal Blog
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 6:48 pm)
This site is a disgrace. I have reported it and I hope that the author of this piece of shit article is found by the powers that be at Old Trafford and they do the decent thing and ban the racist cunt for life from all grounds.
And the hypocritical prick has the neck to think united are some saviour of the national team, the day after the fuckin prick watched his team with how many english players??? I think if you add it up you will find it amounts to the same amount of people as Walcott and Hoyte.
Do us all a favour writer, find a nice motorway bridge and take a good jump you racist pig.
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 6:17 pm)
If this article is an example of ‘Manchester United Football Intelligence’, then god help you all. Despite the author’s attempt at an apology two articles later, which was at best rather pathetic and probably forced upon him by the editor, this piece of ‘journalism’ is breathtaking in its lack of touch with the modern world.
“The number of black players in that team is staggering, especially as it’s an English club.”
- The author clearly feels that black does not equal English. What decade are you living in sir? A truly shocking statement.
Clearly the inference was to the number of foreign players in the Arsenal side; your writer however equates foreign with ‘black’. Hleb, Rosicky, Fabregas, Clichy, Almunia, Flamini and Bendtner were all on the pitch for Arsenal last night - all of them foreign - all of them white. And yet your writer chooses to write “black players”, to focus on the colour of a player’s skin rather than his country of origin, which was actually the point of both Blatter and Ferguson’s remarks.
“As Arsenal continue to kidnap young six year old boys from Papa Nu Guinea…”
- It doesn’t take a genius to see where the inspiration for this comment has come from, but I won’t even go there.
Just about every team in the Premiership is recruiting young talented players at a very young age, and I’m sure United are no exception to this. Besides, what difference would it make whether a player came from Papua New Guinea (note spelling), Argentina, or Ireland? All three would be foreigners, and your highest-profile signing of the summer not to mention your talismanic treble-winning captain would all be in that category. But no, Papua New Guinea is chosen as the target, no doubt due to the fact that many inhabitants are what Mr Kibirige would term as ‘black’.
I would be taking this very seriously indeed if I was the editor of this website, for the sake of its reputation and for the sake of the countless United fans that read it who have very different views on race to Henry Kibirige. Oh, by the way, that surname doesn’t sound very English, does it?
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 7:01 pm)
OK. I am the author of the foreign players article, and I am writng this to emphasise how apologetic I am for writing that.
The whole point of the article was to correspond on the changes in football that are happening in the sense of foreign players in the Prem.
I wrote it in a very inaccurate way, which truned out to be a rascist way. This I assure you, was not meant to happen. I wrote this article without a thought for anyone else and I truly appologise for that.
I don’t want to use this as an excuse, but as I am a teenage lad, I haven’t that much experience of the ‘real world’, and I haven’t had time to make mistakes and learn from them. This is a mistake I have made, and will definately learn from it.
And, rightly pointed out by Seba, my second name suggests that I am not English, I am actually a black African, so that highlights that I am not discriminating black people.
Please reply.
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 7:49 pm)
Bollox! No black person would write that crap, a prick looking for a way out would.
Note how many utd. fans responded to this article or the bullshit apology piece, they have obviously read it and are too embarressed to even think about entering a debate on the subject. You are on your own cunts, shut down this racist propaganda spewing site for good, nobody would want hear your views anymore, you are done you racist pigs.
(On Nov 12th, 2007 at 10:10 pm)
shocking idiotic and what you’d expect from a united fan