Sam Allardyce has lamented the lack of opportunities given to homegrown managers in English football.
Speaking on the Sports Breakfast on Tuesday, the former England boss said he is ‘bewildered’ by the fact so many talented coaches are overlooked for jobs in their own country and not afforded the same chances as their foreign counterparts.
There are currently just five British or Irish managers in the Premier League and Allardyce, who counts Crystal Palace, Everton, Newcastle and West Ham among his old clubs, fears even someone of his experience may have to look abroad for his next job in the game.
“It is bewildering the amount of top quality coaches and managers in this country who are sat without a job and not even getting interviewed at an Oldham or a lot of the Championship clubs now,” he said.
“Most clubs are now being owned by foreigners who are picking a foreign coach or manager. The first team coach then comes from abroad, the reserve team manager comes from abroad. Four or five generally follow in the same nationality as that manager, which is extremely worrying for the whole of this country in terms of our development of young coaches and managers.
“The Premier League is an international league played in this country.
“The FA spend huge amount of millions to qualify us but we don’t have an awful lot of say about where we get our jobs from because they are fast diminishing in this country.
“We have got five managers who are British in the Premier League now. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to choose a career as an Englishman in your own country.
“For me, you have try and get abroad the way it is going now.”