EIGHT months ago, Arsène Wenger and Alan Pardew fell out. Pardew, the West Ham United manager, was upset that Wenger, the Arsenal manager, fielded not a single English player in a Champions League match against Real Madrid. “We are losing the soul of English football,” Pardew said.

Wenger accused Pardew of being racist and xenophobic, which he denied, and pointed out that Pardew had had no problems with foreign players when he took Jérémie Aliadière, Arsenal’s young French striker, on loan at the start of last season. Yesterday, with Arsenal scheduled to visit West Ham tomorrow, the row erupted again.

Not, though, between the same protagonists. Pardew considers that he has a close relationship with Wenger, although he has not spoken to the Arsenal manager since their spat. This time, Wenger’s anger was directed at Fifa, the sport’s world governing body, and Fifpro, the international players’ union.

The organisations reached an accord this week in which, by 2010, they hope to bring in a rule stating that clubs must field at least six home-grown players in their starting line-ups. Their agreement, which still has the tricky task of getting past the employment laws of the European Union, was a red rag to Wenger.

“I feel that football bodies have to care about the game,” Wenger said. “And at that level of the game, it means that you shouldn’t protect mediocrity. I would never like to think that someone will sit on the bench, even though they are better than someone else, just because he has not got the right passport. If you love football, you should not act in this way. This is what I fight for. I would prefer to say to a player, ‘You make £4 million a year because you are good enough’ rather than, ‘I give you £2 million because you have the right passport’.”

Uefa, the sport’s European body, supports the move by Fifa and Fifpro and already has in place similar restrictions. At the moment, clubs must have at least four home-grown players in their 25-strong squads. That home-based complement is due to rise to eight by 2008.

At Upton Park tomorrow, Arsenal are likely to field one English player — Justin Hoyte, the full back, who has managed to secure a first-team place because of a long-term injury to Lauren. If the governing bodies get their way, Arsenal might have to alter radically their transfer policy.

“I don’t find this right and it’s not respecting the fans who pay £60 to watch a game,” Wenger said. “What do you say to them — ‘Yes, he’s not good enough, but we have to play him because he’s from the right country’. This is whether he’s English, French or South African. We want to be an elite sport, we want to be well paid, so this should be a case of quality and nothing else. I’ m very unhappy. I pay a player because he is better than someone else and I have always done that, never for any other reason. This is contestable because it is not defendable.”

Pardew has a different philosophy, preferring to find British players from the lower leagues who match his dynamic character. He will probably field only two foreign players tomorrow.

“It was a shame that there was not an Englishman in that Arsenal team,” Pardew said. “Unfortunately my quote got sensationalised into something completely different,” Pardew said. “I have not got a problem with Arsenal’s way or what they do. They are a fantastic club and am looking forward to them coming here.

“We have had a quite a close relationship. I visited their training ground several times when I was Reading manager. Arsène Wenger will be the first person I shake hands with before the game.”

UNITED NATIONS OF ARSENAL

ONLY seven of Arsène Wenger’s 71 signings for Arsenal have been English. He has signed no Scots, Welsh or Irish. More than a quarter of his signings have been French

WENGER’S SIGNINGS: 18 French 7 English 6 Brazilian 4 German 3 Dutch, Italian, Ivorian 2 Cameroonian, Czech, Danish, Nigerian, Spanish, Swedish 1 Argentine, Austrian, Belarussian, Croatian, Estonian, Greek, Guinean, Japanese, Latvian, Liberian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Swiss, Togan, Ukrainian

BILL EDGAR