Don't blame me for England's failure, says Premier League chief Scudamore

They have been blamed for England's failure to reach the European Championship finals.

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Blamed for the fact that there are too many foreigners playing in English football's top flight; foreigners, it has been argued, who prevent English footballers from playing in the top flight.

The Premier League's chief executive responds with defiance rather than deference, and turns the tables on the Football Association and the Government.

He calls for the Government to make changes to the national curriculum that will enable schoolchildren to play more sport; calls for the FA to streamline their England operation and calls for the end to an international committee that, he says, confuses the situation.

"Decisions about the England team should be left to the chief executive, or the executive, and the England manager," says Scudamore as he sits in his relatively modest office at the Premier League headquarters in London's Gloucester Place.

"There is a role for an international committee, but it should have more to do with diplomacy, talking to other national associations and so on.

"You shouldn't have this whole entourage that interferes with what is a very focused business.

"That is something England can learn from the clubs.

"They are focused around one or two people.

Usually the team manager, perhaps the chief executive or the chairman.

"The FA need to find a guy who knows what he wants, who has the right philosophy, and then let him have what he wants.

"Don't second-guess him. Don't mess with him. Don't get in his way. Don't create a circus around the England coach."

Strong stuff, but today Scudamore is actually more interested in defending the Premier League and he produces a file that makes for interesting reading.

He points to the fact that, back in 1992 and the first season of the Premier League, 128 English players appeared in the competition. Last season the figure had almost doubled to 246.

He points to the fact that in the Premier League academies that come in for so much criticism, 85 per cent of the 16 to 18-year-olds who attend them are British.

He then points to the so-called golden era of English football.

That period in the 70s and 80s when English clubs lifted the European Cup seven times in eight years.

"Look at the performances of the England team in the same period," says Scudamore.

"We failed to qualify for the major tournaments in 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978 and 1984.

And in 1980 we only reached the first round."

So what about the flak the Premier League has taken?

"My first response is that it seems an entirely illogical response to what we saw at Wembley last week," he says.

"The basic premise that people seem to be espousing is that foreign players have hurt our game.

"I don't see where that logic gets you because everybody recognises that our game has moved on technically.

"But look at the data we have here. Look at the fact that when English clubs were winning the European Cup every season, the England team weren't qualifying for major tournaments.

"Look at how many more English players are now appearing in the Premier League. Liverpool once won the European Cup with a squad of 16 but that would never happen now.

"So when was the golden period when we qualified for everything? We haven't had one.

"nd where is the logic that says foreign players have harmed the development of English talent? We can't see it and we don't need the quotas that FIFA want to bring in that would limit the number of foreign players each club can employ.

"Clearly, it is getting harder and harder to shine. But what we don't believe in is protectionism.

"In our view that leads to a dumbing down of quality. It might be harder for a young English player to make it into our top teams so those who succeed must be better."

So what went wrong during Steve McClaren's disastrous tenure as England coach?

"I think there are parallel universes," he says.

"There is the England team and there is what goes on with England, and if you were to lift the black box from the wreckage of what happened last Wednesday and analyse it I'm sure you'd find a whole lot of things going on in there.

"But we don't believe that it is because of the success of the Premier League; that these things are mutually exclusive."

The problem with English football, argues Scudamore, goes much deeper than the Premier League. It is a cultural problem; a problem with modern British society.

"If I was to take off my Premier League hat and put on my sports nut hat, and my dad's hat, I certainly don't believe we are going about things the right way as a country," he says.

"We are interested in sport but I'm not sure we take sport seriously enough. At government level, as a nation.

"My friends at the FA are responsible for 99.9 per cent of the football that is played in this country but the Government has to decide how much sport is played by young people.

"Our remit ends at academy and youth development level. It starts with schools.

"In Australian schools they play an hour and a half of sport every day.

It's part of their national curriculum. Mandatory.

"We need to have a radical look at all of this. But a governing body can't change the culture of sport in this country. The FA and the Premier League can take part in the debate. But it's the Government that needs to push the changes through."

While Scudamore calls for 'cohesive thinking on the issue of youth development', getting the FA and the Premier League to agree on anything continues to prove difficult.

Take the little-publicised independent Lewis report on youth development.

A report, while not yet finalised, that has been embraced by the Premier League but not so much by the FA.

"We will go into partnership with them, but it has to be an adult partnership," he says.

"It can't just be one lot telling the other lot what to do and how to do it.

"Intellectually and financially, the clubs are into academies. They are out there desperately searching for the golden nugget that is local homegrown talent.

"Not only does it save them a fortune but they are great to have. Players like Gerrard, Carragher and Terry."

Players who one day represent England.