Whatever happened to Sport Direct? It was my favourite promise of the last election. But nothing has happened. Where is it?

Perhaps you have a shamefully hazy recollection of the contents of the culture and sport section of the Government’s 2005 manifesto. If so, you may need to be reminded about Sport Direct. It will be “a single point of access for sports in the UK. One website and one phone number will help you find out what’s going on.” If it ever happens.

I must admit that when I first read Labour’s programme I thought Sport Direct was idiotic – a pointless idea thought up merely to fill a bit of white space, some words to show that it cared, something to run with a picture above it of John Prescott playing netball with some deprived children, or whatever. But the more I thought about it, the more useful I realised this phone line could be. A single number that you can call to find out what’s going on! Hardly a day goes by when I don’t have something that I’d like to ask about.

Here’s today’s example. The new Culture Secretary, James Purnell, has concluded that Britain’s football clubs are in want of his advice about the best sort of new players to recruit. He has conveyed to them his view that they are wasting their time trawling the world for brilliant 11-year-olds to sign. Instead, they should be nurturing domestic talent.

Now, I like James Purnell a great deal, and I don’t want to be rude, but let’s just say that while he’d be the first person I’d consult on how to time an election, there would be one or two others I’d canvass before him if I were trying to select apprentices for Newcastle United.

So what’s going on? See how helpful it would be if Sport Direct were up and running? Without it, I’ll have to hazard a guess.

Two things have come to Mr Purnell’s attention. The first is that, according to a memo from his civil servants, England did not win the World Cup. This failure has happened before. It happens a great deal. Indeed, it almost always happens. And every time it does, everyone looks around for “The Reason”.

The usual candidate is that our domestic season is too long – our players are exhausted by the time that they reach the tournament. But after our last defeat, “The Reason” that everyone has identified is that we have too many foreign players plying their trade in the English Premier League. They are choking our English game, starving our young, thrusting talent of the opportunity to shine.

Something must be done. Measures must be taken. Perhaps you ought to cancel your holiday, Minister, and put in place a plan of action.

Mr Purnell will also have been informed that the EU has published a White Paper proposing some new restrictions. This, like World Cup defeats, also happens all the time. The paper suggests that Premier League clubs be allowed to field only a certain proportion of foreign players. Anxious to avoid having these rules imposed on us, Mr Purnell has elected to work behind the scenes encouraging clubs to change their attitude. If clubs police themselves there will be no need for new laws.

Good on you, Minister. Thank heavens for your pressure. I can just see it now, as the home-grown striker slots one past the hapless, lunging Brazilian keeper and the World Cup is ours once more, the crowd rises to its feet and begins singing “there’s only one Department of Culture”.

Mr Purnell is an intelligent man, one of the best ministers in the Government. So I have to ask – can’t he see it? Is there something that happens to you when you get office that makes you feel as if you have to interfere, however ludicrous your interference?

First, our failure to win the World Cup isn’t hard to explain. England is a medium-sized country competing with dozens of others. Reaching the quarter-finals, as we usually do, isn’t all that bad. It’s about what you would expect. We didn’t win when we had no foreign players in the league or when we had a few or when we had many. The need for action is posited on the idea that there is a negative correlation between England’s performances and the number of foreign players in our top-flight games. There isn’t the slightest evidence for this.

In any case, restrictions on the number of foreign players would damage the growth of youth football in England. There would be fewer brilliant international players to watch and learn from, and there would be fewer opportunities to play overseas. To put pressure on clubs to buy English players as an act of national solidarity will simply inflate the price of those players without improving their usefulness.

Secondly, the Government is asking clubs voluntarily to become worse. It’s as simple as that. If you scour the world for the best players, you will do better than if you scour only England. An advanced degree in maths is not necessary in order to grasp this point. It is unlikely, therefore, that any club will respond positively to the request.

The reason that some in Europe want a law to force quotas on clubs is that they can see this, even if our government can’t. The English Premier League is a sensational free-market, free-trade success story, with England becoming mecca for the best players in the world. Unsurprisingly, some who envy it want to bring it down to help their own less good leagues.

So what should the minister do? Nothing. Nothing. He shouldn’t have a policy, shouldn’t convey his opinion, shouldn’t indicate his dismay. He shouldn’t set up a phone line (in the end I didn’t need Sport Direct to work things out). He shouldn’t create a website. He shouldn’t call a summit, brief a newspaper, or make a grand gesture. He should just leave it alone, leave it all alone.

For goodness’ sake, how hard can this be?

Times Recommends

• It’s the beginning of the affair
• Afghanistan: still a price worth paying
• Heroes of the downtrodden