Adam Smith Institute

View Original

Ben Southwood says Andy Burnham wrong to aim quotas at foreign footballers

Following Andy Burnham's suggestion we should slap quotas on the number of foreign players plying their trade in our football leagues, ASI head of research Ben Southwood said:

It’s Andy Burnham against the world as the MP proposes to slap quotas on foreign stars in the England’s top club competition, based on nothing more than a gut feeling.

If he studied the data, he'd find that cracking down on foreign players in the Premier League would undermine the quality of football there without helping England do any better in international competitions.

Though foreign players lead to a lower quantity of minutes played by natives, they raise the quality of those minutes, which seems to balance out overall. Do we really think our defenders would be better if they'd never faced up against Zlatan or Aguero?
Before Burnham pronounces on things he doesn't know anything about, he might want to read my paper Sweet FA.

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Flora Laven-Morris, Head of Communications, at flora@adamsmith.org | 07584 778207.

The link for the telegraph article is here.