The majority of the players in the Premier League should be qualified for England. Arsenal usually fail to field even one qualified player, they are a Rest of the World XI and should be ineligible for UEFA competitions.

Beobachter, Wien,

All the foreign players in the inferior Premier League are the reason we will never have a decent national team.

For fotball with fun, you would have to go a long way to beat Sundya's BBC's Match of the Day, Torquat United v Yeovil. Might not have been 'beautiful' to watch, but it was real football. Not like the prima donna's in the premier.

Pete Hodge, Skelmersdale,

aren't there already 200 or so englishmen in the premier league? and more than that in the championship? how many do you need to field a national team?

and how do you improve the quality of your national team when you restrict the competition which potential national team players face in their club leagues? i find it hard to believe that the english game can improve by shielding english players from the world's best.

barry, Kansas City, usa

Football Clubs create high-performing teams through lengthy and expensive development programmes, with much input of imagination and management skills. The much-maligned Arsenal are a prime example of such strategic efforts (treating all races and nationalities as people with potential to be great footballers). Clubs buy, develop and pay the players, and provide all the infrastructure for the sport. Meanwhile National teams are parasites on the Clubs’ efforts, giving little to player development and often injuring the players whom they do not fund. I do not believe there is room for both forms of football at professional level. The time has come to let Clubs deliver the professional excellence while National football becomes a purely amateur game. The Nations should take pride in the carefully crafted Clubs they host, rather than in an ad hoc collection of players who share only the dubious distinction of being born one patch of land.

Martin, High Wycombe, UK

The Premiership has arguably the best standard of football in the world, certainly the most exciting. This is because of the amount of quality international players that play here. Remember, most of these players play for their respective international teams and are some of the best their country, and the world, has to offer. The premiership has benefited from this influx with the standard having been raised considerably over the last 10 years. English players have benefited considerably as well, and there is a host of top quality english players playing in the premiership and also, just as importanly, a host of promissing youth coming through, all of a higher standard than 10 years ago. In that sense the game has benefited. Let us not forget also that the Championship has a host of homegrown talent, and if any players are good enough they will make it up in to the premiership or the international scene. Any International failings must be blamed on management and the players they pick.

J W Randall, Edinburgh,

Hmm, one wonders if Sky would be prepared to paly millions for football featuring players who otherwise wouldn't be good enough to play for their teams....

The problem is in teaching basic skills - if the players were good enough they'd play, wouldn't they? No manager picks a player just because they are "foreign". They pick the best players they have.

Perhaps if English players weren't so over-priced and if they scaled down their obscene wage demands they might get a few more games?

Does football think it's so special that EU law does not apply?

I echo the points about the Government's immigration stance, will they bring in similar quotas for plumbers or builders? And for a Government that has systematically destroyed competitiveness in schools and sold off playing fields to house millions of immigrants to make statements like this beggars belief, even by the standards of the Labour Party Joke Machine.

J. Wilkes, Gloucester,

Dear Mr Sutcliffe.

How, has an obvious racist such as you are, have a job in the government?

Surely you are opening the door to say those coming into this country must not get jobs as they are taking work away from others already living here?

Resign NOW

mikey, Birminghum,

Typical English, lets find someone to blame for the national team's ineptitude. I guess the masses are tired of blaming the coach and players so it's time to turn on the league. Classic.

steve, Virginia, U.S.

It's not simply a matter of the amount of foreigners surely one must ask one's self, how is it that poor countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal can produce Premiership players, but the UK can't. Is it because the development of the game in the UK is down to a few willing Dad's that turn out on the parks week in week out, with out any support from the clubs.Is it because most of rep sides are filled with the managers mates kids and the real talent gets over looked. It's time that the UK invested in the FA, and started to provide some proper governance. France re-organised their entire system when they didn't qualify for one of the world cups, the French Government vowed that no French talent would be over looked. They produced a World Cup winning side... the only talent England has produced comes from a now defunct academy and even they all seem to miraculously injure themselves with monotonous regularity the week before any England games...

M Grice, Portsmouth,

I don't think any member of the present goverment is qualified to talk about "getting the balance right" on foreigners working in the UK.....

Why Gerry Sutcliffe feels he has a right to interfere in what is a globally regulated private industry is beyond me. But typical of the nanny state hypocrisy of this Labour goverment.

Andrew Coxon, London, UK

Good grief! Is this the first announcement by a government minister that contradicts the official line that ALL immigration is 'a good thing'?!! My word- we'll be expecting a rapid climb down following pressure from Gordon Brown any time now!

Dan Oxford, Oxford, England

Maybe we should have a quota of foreign politicians in the British Parliament. Scotland and Wales have their own Parliaments, yet many of their members seemed to have ensconced themselves in Westminister. Is that affecting the quality, or is the problem the Coach, ie Gordon Brown.

kerry, London,

in my professional opinion i do not feel restricting the number of foreign players that ply there trade in the league will help, it will rather show the incapacity of the english men to ably run there affairs at home properly. usually, if england flops they alway blame somebody or something. am afraid that Mr Wenger will be the next sacrifical lamb. maybe if cesc fabregas was english that will probably cool frayed nerves.

rommel, ABUJA, nigeria

The herring gets redder.
Will someone ask Gerry boy to point out the cups in the F A trophy cabinet that England won when teams,pre 2000, had predominately English players.
Actually ,since 1996 we have done quite well in competions compared to the period 1970 to 1996 when we had nearly 100% English players in our top division.
And with our teams stuffed with English players we managed
to gloriously not qualify for the World Cups of 1974 ,1978 and 1994.Oh, and with English managers in charge.
Blimey I feel a sense of deja vu coming on when I look at Steve Mclaren

CHRIS DEE, london,