England ´won´t win World Cup again´ – Platini

England won't win the World Cup again while leading Premier League clubs are so reliant on foreign players, according to Michel Platini, the president of European football governing body UEFA.

“Soon in England you will have no English players, no English managers, just foreign speculators,” France football great Platini said in an interview with the Observer Sports Monthly here Sunday.

Platini, who captained his country to victory in the 1984 European Championships, added: “You have to ask yourself what that means for football at a national level.

“England is the traditional home of football but do you think that England will ever win the World Cup again? When you look at the statistics right now – when hardly any English players are in the final stages of the Champions League – it is a good question and the answer is probably no.

“At least it will not happen under the present structures.”

England have won the World Cup just once in their history, when they triumphed on home soil to beat the then West Germany 4-2 in the 1966 final at Wembley Stadium.

Platini has repeatedly angered many within the English game by his criticisms of the debt levels which finance the top clubs and he recently attacked his compatriot Arsene Wenger, the manager of Arsenal, for poaching youngsters for the Gunners' academy.

His detractors say Platini's criticisms of a lack of competitiveness in English football apply equally to his native France, where Lyon have won the championship seven times in a row, and other major European leagues.

And they point out how there were 10 England players in the starting line-ups when Manchester United played Chelsea in May's Champions League final.

Platini, who played for Italian giants Juventus, said the US-based Glazer family which owns Manchester United and the Abu Dhabi consortium which recently took over Manchester City could not be compared to the likes of Gianni Agnelli and Silvio Berlusconi, the backers of Juventus and AC Milan respectively.

“Agnelli was from Turin and Berlusconi from Milan,” said Platini. “They were football men. I have nothing against millionaires but they must have football values and some link with the club.

“American and Arabian owners can never properly be part of the fans.”

Platini's views were once branded by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore as “not much more than you would hear in the corner of a pub”.

However, Platini countered: “I am a football man, not a businessman or a politician, and so I would rather be closer to the fans in the pub than, say, Richard Scuadamore.

“You have to remember that football is a game – a beautiful game, yes, and one that makes millions, but it is a game, a spectacle for the fans and not the money-men.”