England warning on Dyke's cup trip

Football Association Chairman Greg Dyke used his trip to the all Evo-Stik Northern Premier League FA Cup clash between AFC Fylde and Ashton United to reiterate his warning that a growing crisis in the numbers of home grown players reaching the game's top flight is damaging the England team.

In his first major speech as the FA’s new leader in September the former broadcaster and Director-General of the BBC insisted that unless an ‘alarming’ lack of home grown talent was urgently addressed, future England teams would ‘fail to compete seriously on the world stage’.

Dyke was guest of honour at Kellamergh Park for the Coasters’ FA Cup Second Qualifying Round tie and in an interview with Heather Lee, one of the Premier Division club’s press team, repeated his warnings after the 1-0 win for the Robins.

On the eve of England’s World Cup qualifiers in September, Dyke cited statistics that showed the number of English players in the starting line-ups of top-flight clubs had slumped from 69 per cent to 32 per cent in the past 20 years.

Dyke, pictured alongside AFC Fylde Chairman David Haythornthwaite, set England the target of winning the European Championship in 2020 and the World Cup in 2022 and he told Lee: "You know we're now down to 30 per cent of the players in the Premier League who are English and that decline is still happening, so what do you do? If you get to 20 per cent or 15 per cent we'll have a real problem with the English team. So I've started this inquiry into why this has happened and what can we do about it. Do I think Non-League clubs can play a part? Yes.

"Increasingly in the top level there aren't enough English players and what I'm trying to establish is why. Is it because they're no longer good enough? Is it because they can no longer get through the system? Is it because it's now cheaper and easier to buy overseas? So what I'm trying to find out is why are there not enough English players in the top level."

The FA’s Chairman also told Lee how impressed he was by the Northern Premier League club’s own efforts to nurture talent on the Fylde coast through the AFC Fylde Community Foundation and the club’s progress in fulfilling its own ambitions to reach the Football League by 2022 with plans moving forward for a new stadium and £18m sports and science park.

After seeing a scale model of the project close to the M55 which includes community sports and education facilities as well as a new retail, leisure and commercial developments, Dyke said: "I think it’s amazing! It’s remarkable to hear the story of where the club has come from. I’m interested in your plan to be in the league by 2022, which is the same as my plan for England to win the World Cup in 2022! We’ll do it together!

"I think the people like David [Haythornthwaite] who put a lot of money into a football club are not doing it because they think they'll get a return. They're doing it because they have a commitment to football, they have a commitment to the local team and I hope for him it pays off because it's a big investment."