UKIP have hit back at Arsene Wenger after the manager weighed in on the Brexit debate, questioning whether this would affect players within the European Union from playing in England without a work permit.
Wenger recently spoke out about players potentially needing a work permit, something that doesn’t affect most right now but will if we leave the EU.
“Will the European players be considered as they are now? Will the French be considered like South American players [who require work permits]?” Wenger said.
“That would completely re-question the influx of foreign players. Will England go that way? If they did, that would leave the Premier League with some questions.”
UKIP’s Deputy Leader, Paul Nuttall, claims this isn’t the case and that numerous players from outside of England will still be able to join our clubs.
“Leaving the EU would not stop teams being able to take on top-flight players from overseas,” Nuttall said.
“At the moment there are players coming to premiership from many countries that aren’t members of the EU, so why would it have any detrimental effect?”
The thing is, Nuttall hasn’t actually answered Wenger’s question. Players from outside of England will need work permits, which will make it considerably harder to bring in talent. Instead, the politician deflected the question and started talking about homegrown players, which isn’t what Wenger was talking about.
“Rashford is only playing because of an injury crisis, but the problem with having so many EU players in the Premier League is that people like him usually wouldn’t be given a chance.
“The academies aren’t able to push players on to full-time contracts because they find it cheaper to recruit an established player from overseas.”
The boss brings up a valid point. Most of the talent in the Premier League comes from overseas, if this becomes more difficult, what will become of our football?