Man Utd and Chelsea eye another foreign kid

Football clubs get blamed for the amount of foreign players in the game. While the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United do cast their nets wide, European Union freedom of employment laws also increase the problem.

Putting politics to one side, though, Man Utd and Chelsea are at it again. This time they are reportedly fighting over a 16-year-old defender from Denmark. Brondy's Nicolai Boilesen has been handed a trial at Old Trafford, but Chelsea are thought to be monitoring the situation closely.

Boilesen told Ekstra Bladet: "It will be fantastic to come to United because they are my favourite club. I am very proud that two such big clubs are watching me. Whether it (his future) is in Denmark or abroad, only time will tell. For now, I am just coming to England to train with United and Chelsea."

What is disturbing is not that this is another foreign player coming to the English game - heck, the odds are he will amount to nothing and we'll never hear about him again - it's his age and the implications training foreign players has on our domestic kids.

The newspaper are always carrying articles about increasingly younger kids being signed by top English clubs, at an age when they should be more worried about passing their 11-plus (oops, showing my age). If a kid isn't in a decent academy by about 13, they have little chance of "making it".

Add the acquisition of foreign kids to the mix, given there are a limited number of places in the top academies, and things look even less promising. How are domestic kids even meant to get to the top in the version of football we now have to endure? And when did it all go wrong?