Last season, about half the players in the English premier league were foreigners, most of them from other EU nations. The football writers’ association has chosen a continental European as its player of the year for four out of the last five years. The 1999 winner was David Ginola, the Frenchman who also figures in shampoo advertisements on television and is thus known to many people who don’t like football. Ginola has also been voted Britain’s best-dressed man, as has Ruud Gullit, the former Dutch footballer.
Chelsea, the London club which Gullit used to manage, has transformed itself from an outfit featuring second-rate British clodhoppers into one of Europe’s best sides with a largely foreign line-up. Chelsea is managed by an Italian, Arsenal and Liverpool by Frenchmen and, until recently, Wimbledon by a Norwegian former Marxist. Those four outnumber the total number of foreign managers in the English top division between 1900 and 1995.
In short, foreigners are taking over English football clubs. This is not happening in many other business sectors. Only if you work in one of a few select offices in central London are you likely to have many continental European colleagues. Nor do Britons encounter continental Europeans in many other spheres of daily life. They may be served by an Australian in their local pub or by a naturalised Bangladeshi in their local Indian restaurant, but unless they live in central London they will meet few continental Europeans. Just 1.6 per cent of EU citizens are permanent residents of another EU country, and few of those live in Birmingham or Sunderland.
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