Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, warned England's top clubs yesterday that they could fall victim to the envy of Europe's powerbrokers determined to curb their success. Scudamore spoke out as Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, signalled his determination to clip the wings of a soaring Barclays Premier League that is carrying off the most talented players in the world and is dominating European football.

The motives behind Blatter's insistence that there must be a quota system imposed on the number of foreign players allowed was greeted with suspicion by Scudamore. “There is a lot of envy out there of English football,” he said. “Envy because of our success and because English football is the most watched in the world.”

Although Blatter's criticism echoed the weary words this week of Kevin Keegan, the Newcastle United manager, who said that English football is boring because it is dominated by four clubs, Scudamore defended the Premier League and the pulsating finish there will be on the last day of this season on Sunday as “fantastic”.

Crowds were at record numbers and the Premier League is the most watched football around the world, he said. “I don't know anybody in their right mind who could say that this Premiership is boring,” he added. “It is the most watched and most exciting league in the world. What is happening is a product of the Champions League. But there will be a change. It could happen in the next five years that someone else will break through.”

Scudamore, however, worries that demands from other European countries could attract the attention of legislators. The Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea in Moscow this month is the trigger for Blatter to step up a campaign that would have a massive effect on English football.

Fed by the millions of pounds of prize-money in the Champions League, the “big four” of English football - United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal - have moved beyond the reach of other Premier League clubs as well as Europe's best. The Champions League has created a powerful elite within an elite, distorting competition in England and Europe, according to Blatter, while Premier League teams, stocked with foreign players, could not provide enough talented Englishmen for a national team to qualify for Euro 2008.

Blatter will put forward proposals this month to Fifa's congress for every team to field six players eligible for the country of the club alongside five foreigners, the so-called 6 plus 5 rule, in a phased introduction up to 2010. “The Champions League has been very successful financially, but it has also favoured national inequality,” Blatter said. “That's why I have to bring this item to the attention of the congress.

“Let us start with the 6 plus 5 rule and then we will see what the difference will be. This rule will be fighting against the monopolies of clubs and leagues. We are not fighting the problem of money, but for the identity of national teams. Shall we let the rich become richer and say nothing?”

The 6 plus 5 rule would have a devastating impact on Premier League clubs. As few as 37 per cent of the starting line-ups on a match day this season have been made up of Englishmen. Some teams, notably Arsenal, would struggle to fulfil their quota under Blatter's rules. But Scudamore believes that Blatter will be unable to overturn legislation that allows free movement of labour within Europe.

Lord Triesman, the FA chairman, sympathises with Blatter's argument, if only because of the depleted crop of English talent to feed the national team, but he, too, believes that European legislators are unlikely to hand football an exemption from the law.