Greg Dyke set to issue 'call to arms' to lift England national team
New FA chief will ask for help
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Your support makes all the difference.Greg Dyke will issue a call to arms for England's footballers in a speech today that will outline the new Football Association chairman's vision for the future of the senior national side and its junior equivalents.
Dyke, in his first major speech since replacing David Bernstein in July, will ask for the support of the rest of the English game in helping to deliver a brighter future for the national team. According to an FA source, Dyke's speech, to be delivered at Millbank Tower in London, will be "a call to arms for the whole of the game to come together to support the England team".
Whether anybody in the Premier League is listening remains to be seen, although Dyke believes the FA must "up its game" in this regard and reports today suggested a possible agreement with the Premier League in providing greater support for the England team with the release of players or the rescheduling of domestic fixtures to avoid clashes with important international games.
Dyke, who has canvassed the opinions of leading figures in the game including former managers and players, will also map out long-term targets for the success for both the senior and junior English sides.
Dyke, the former BBC director general and – until this summer – chairman of League One club Brentford, has embarked on his four-year post at an inauspicious moment for the England national sides, after the much-publicised failures of the Under-21 and Under-20 teams on their respective European and world stages this summer when both failed to get out of the group phase.
Indeed the stock of English players has seldom seemed as low – two-thirds of players in action on the opening weekend of the Premier League were foreign and according to Deloitte's figures only £60m of the £630m spent by the top-flight clubs in the transfer window went on English players.
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