Opinion | England's failures due to EPL's success
New FA chairman is right to warn that national team's future is in peril - but the league he helped set up is its main threat
Our EPL stars are on international duty so to pass the time why not try to imagine the scene conjured up this week by new England FA chairman Greg Dyke during his first "state of the national game" speech.
England have just beaten arch-nemesis Germany 3-1 in a thrilling final and the sober and sun-stroked English fans are going nuts amid the sand dunes, date palms and air-conditioned stadiums. The rest of the world looks on in awe at the Three Lions reborn ...
Don't laugh. This is not a whimsical Arabian mirage. Such a scene is the hoped-for result of a radical overhaul of the English league system instigated this week by grand visionary Dyke.
Forget Brazil next year, he urged. The FA's goal is the semi-finals of the 2020 Euros. From there, said Dyke, England would leap through the looking glass and on to glory in Qatar.
To reach this zenith, the English leagues - especially the EPL - must undergo sweeping reform to produce homegrown world beaters. The stats speak for themselves. This season, only 32 per cent of EPL players are English.