Joey Barton considers the culture within English football to be ‘rotten from the bottom’. This statement came right after England’s disappointing performance at the U-21s European Championships.
In speaking with BBC 5 Radio, Barton said, “Everybody wants to blame it on something and it’s not a case of that. It’s not the players, it’s not the coaching staff, it’s not one thing, it’s an accumulation of many things. The culture within English football is not changing – no St George’s Park, no massive spend, no change of coach, this isn’t going to change it.”
He also said that because of this reason, the English senior squad was likely to fail at major championships as well.
He also believes that English players should be unavailable for the senior squad for a few years if they have turned down playing for the U-21s. In fact, he believes that the FA should tell these players that they will not be selected given the situation where they did not play for the U-21s.
To sum things up, he said that ‘passion’ has to be restored in the badge when it comes to restoring the country at any level.
While his opinion might be true, it is, for a variety of cultural reasons, that a number of young people cannot play the game at that age. With the emphasis on how much money is paid and not enough on passion, demanding wins is only natural.
It’s time to start enjoying the game again instead of being arrogant to assume that England should produce better footballers.