It’s a bit like Jerry Springer taking over The South Bank Show.Well, only a bit because culture vultures can swoop where they choose. A Manchester United fan, until some final moment of brutal resignation and perhaps severance, is stuck with his team and his memories and his suddenly aborted dream.So it follows naturally that if talk of violence against Glazer or members of his family is wild and unlawful and utterly reprehensible – and even more misguided than noises from the same quarter which advocated disruption of the Cheltenham Festival when John Magnier and JP McManus were seen as the greatest evil – the extent of the gut anger is inevitable.What does seem a little strange, when you step back from the battleground and consider the central point of all the angst, is how this rage so quickly transfers from one hate figure to another. So, the proposal is certain to be opposed formally by the FA, although the Football League’s board has said it is broadly in favour.Uefa has shocked us here, showing that a governing body can be prepared to govern for what it perceives to be the best interests of the game. It faces threats from G14, an Association of Leagues led, inevitably, by our Premier League’s chairman Dave Richards and a clear rival to Uefa. However, Uefa is adamant it must do its job: “The rich clubs’ stance does not reflect the game of football,” Gaillard said, “but the narrow interests of very wealthy people who regard football not as a game but an investment, for profile or financial reward. We must look at the whole football family, not just a small ?te.”You will not hear language like that in Soho Square.

Uefa believes it is actually helping the big clubs with this proposal, allowing them all, together, to give more young players a chance and thereby also reduce their wage bills. Fans, too, Uefa believes, will feel more affection for sides with at least a smattering of home-grown players.However, in the Premier League meeting to discuss the issue, only Norwich and Charlton spoke in favour, while West Bromwich Albion were said by one insider to be “lukewarm” All other clubs were against. National football associations across Europe are in favour because the measure will help national teams. Our FA, so dominated by the Premier League, was the only one in Europe to lobby against it.An FA spokesman told me it will not even be discussed by the committees responsible for the England side or youth development; instead it will be considered only by the Professional Game Board, a majority of whose members, including Dein, are Premier League representatives. FourFourTwo magazine recently published figures showing that opportunities for home-grown players have significantly decreased over the last decade: last season, only 103 of the Premier League’s 900 players were playing for the club which developed them; in 1993-94 there were 650 players, of which 164 were home-grown.A Uefa spokesman, William Gaillard, told me Uefa had found in a near year-long study what many academy coaches here complain about privately: for all the investment, young graduates are losing out as clubs buy ready-made foreign stars.

There needs to be some degree of balance, some means to keep the playing field at least reasonably level.”Around Europe, Uefa has actually been criticised for being too timid. It is, however, wary of overstepping European law, and is taking things one step at a time.The argument that clubs are not investing sufficiently in player training is refuted by the Premier League, whose clubs are estimated to have spent some £100m on facilities and coaches since 1997, when the academy system was introduced.Seven years on, however, the first academy graduates are 24, and few are the heart of Premiership teams. Here is what Uefa said: “Should we accept that a very rich club can buy an unlimited number of players, pay them massive salaries and ensure that their smaller rivals never have a chance to win a competition? That is not what sport is about. Here, Manchester United and Arsenal’s duopoly is only challenged by Chelsea now because of Roman Abramovich’s riches and the £88m loss he was prepared to underwrite.On the legitimacy of this, far less the morality, our FA is silent. Uefa has observed that across Europe, since pay-TV riches poured in mostly to the biggest clubs, coupled with the post-Bosman free movement of players, success has been concentrated ever more tightly to the two or three richest clubs. They were: lack of investment in player training; reduction in competitive balance; hoarding of players by clubs; weakening of national teams; and erosion of clubs’ local identity.The second in this list takes head-on Dein’s assertion that “the product” is thriving.

This week it said that it is proposing the measure to counter “trends which threaten to damage the long-term interests of our sport”. There are only a couple of countries where the clubs and leagues have different opinions.”In Italy, though Serie A is against the measure, the Italian FA announced it is in favour and intends to introduce the system for domestic football. Here, our free-market Premier League even raised the faintly hilarious prospect of a case expensively mounted in court for our clubs’ right not to play any of their own Academy-produced players.”The product,” Dein said, meaning Premier League football, “is good We don’t want to debase it.” Uefa begs to differ. Uefa wants these numbers to increase to three of each the following season, rising by 2008-09 to four.What we did not hear much was that, apart from in Italy, the proposal has overwhelming support across Europe. The major leagues in Spain, Germany and France – which recently signed a TV deal more lucrative than the Premiership’s – told Uefa they approve the measure as a positive way of strengthening links with local populations and increasing opportunities for young players.Uefa’s chief executive, Lars Christer-Olsson, a graduate of the Swedish culture which, like much of Europe, invests sport with some human values beyond mere moneymaking and the pursuit of silverware, reported: “A vast majority are in favour of the proposal. In the Premier League’s immediate opposition, led by David Dein, the vice-chairman of Arsenal, frothing about possible legal action to oppose this “restraint of trade”, the answer was provided as surely as in a GP’s file: the patient is overheating, to the point of hysteria. If you had wanted to check the health of top-flight English football, you could have done worse than measure its response to last week’s polite announcement by Uefa of ever-so-modest proposals for more home-grown players to be included in first-team squads.