Andy Burnham adds support to foreign quota plan

Premier League clubs should have a quota of English players to boost home-grown talent, a leading government minister said on Saturday.

Andy Burnham, the secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, said in an interview with The Times that he was willing to campaign for a change in European law to allow a cap on the number of overseas players in top sides.

"There is an argument for a system of quotas both in terms of supporting the national team and helping to secure more equal competition within the Premier League," he told the newspaper.

Sepp Blatter, the president of world football's governing body FIFA, has been advocating the introduction of a "6+5" rule restricting the number of foreign players who can start a match to five since last year.

However, despite more than a year of talks with the European Union, FIFA's plan has repeatedly come up against the bulwark of EU law which does not allow sports to have rules that restrict freedom of movement.

Blatter is confident that the law will eventually be changed and was given an overwhelming mandate at FIFA's annual congress in Sydney in May to continue to pursue the idea.

Burnham's comments in London follow England's failure to qualify for the recent Euro 2008 finals in Switzerland and Austria.

On Friday, England's Italian manager Fabio Capello said he was at a huge disadvantage compared to other national team managers as only 35 percent of the players in the Premier League were English.

Burnham added: "I am not xenophobic in any way but I care about the health of English football, the state of the grassroots game, the quality of the competition and the ability to win of the national team."

Burnham said he was prepared to speak to the EU in a bid to get the law changed.

"I would be quite prepared to go to Europe and say this is our proposal, let's see if we can get clearance for this. Ultimately sport is about national teams. European law should recognise the special nature of sport and be applied sensitively."

David Triesman, the chairman of the Football Association told The Times: "There's a problem that there are too few players who are eligible to play for England playing in the Premiership. We have got to look at this and look at this fast."