He said: "The consistent debate about the number of English players performing for our top clubs has naturally gathered momentum as the season draws to a critical stage.

"Our talented England squad heading for Germany heightens that discussion because they will probably be one of the youngest of those participating. Alan Pardew and Arsene Wenger have recently been brought into the debate.

"Both are highly knowledgeable, passionate football men and like all top managers under pressure to achieve success.

"Alan has built his West Ham team around a core of young English players such as Nigel Reo-Coker, Anton Ferdinand, Matthew Etherington and Dean Ashton.

"Arsenal have progressed to the Champions League quarter-finals without any English players, but it should be remembered that Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell, mainstays of their team, have been out injured.

"I’m sure Arsene Wenger would love to have a team of Englishmen but his priority is to pick a winning, successful side regardless of nationality.

"My challenge as Director of Football Development is to lead a programme of skills development in our young generation that makes clubs look locally first when searching for talented, technically accomplished players.

"The harsh fact is that many clubs feel our young teenage hopefuls are significantly behind the technical skills embedded in their European counterparts like France, Spain or Portugal.

"Although thankfully there are some notable exceptions, I have to agree with the overall judgement that we have some major catching up to rectify this problem. Only around 40% of first team players in the Premiership are English, as compared to around 65% of Spanish players in La Liga for example.

"There is also a growing number of overseas youngsters at academies which is obviously of no benefit to our national youth teams. These can also be included in the UEFA quota of home-grown players and so that is why that particular topic does not resolve our concerns.

"With an overall population of nearly 50 million people I do not believe we are producing the depth of talent that we should, and I would like to make competition for places that much harder.

"In recent months my staff and I have had a number of meetings with coaches and practitioners working in all sectors of the game and have produced a new coaching philosophy which we plan to launch before the World Cup.

"The strategy is specifically aimed at improving the basic skills of youngsters in the 5-11 year old age group in a fun and exciting way which can only be achieved by quality coaching.

"There has been an unfortunate trend in this country for coaches at this level to be under-appreciated and under-paid when compared to other sectors of the game. The reverse applies in many others countries, who recognise the importance of this developmental stage.

"A worrying statistic from The Department of Education Inspectorate is that 60% of all our eleven year olds leaving primary school are physically illiterate. This means that they do not possess the basic ABC of physical movement which are agility, balance and coordination.

"This is the starting point any youngster needs to be active and is termed a multi-skill approach. What I want to do is to introduce a ‘Skill Coach’ Programme that is a combination of football specific skills and also basic movement activities.

"The football specific work revolves around every youngster possessing their own football and then being enthused and motivated by a range of movement skills which are fun and enjoyable.

"When I was growing up skills were picked up over the course of countless informal games in the street or park. As we have seen the decline of street football through parental concerns over the welfare of their children, so the need for dedicated quality coaching becomes more acute.

"I firmly believe the professional stakeholders can play an important role in delivering some of this work as many of the larger clubs are already creating Development Centres that work with 5-8 year olds. If we can extend this work into schools and local junior clubs then the technical skills of this age group should improve significantly.

"Howard Wilkinson introduced the Charter for Quality back in 1997 which helped introduce the Academies and Centres of Excellence now within the Professional Clubs.

"They were allowed access to youngsters from 9 – 16 before being signed on as full time scholars. These have been extremely successful and produced a number of our top English players. I believe the Football Association, as the governing body, needs to invest in that 5-11 age group because they are the essential years for putting in place the sustainable learning experience that encourages youngsters to stay in football throughout their lives at whatever level that may be.

"From this programme the decision for the Profession Game at 13 or 14 years of age must become that much more difficult for them to ignore the English player in the years to come.

"I do not believe there is any reason why, with proper coaching at an early age, English players should not develop the same technical ability as their Dutch or French counterparts.

"The process will take time, but it is central to the long-term health and success of the English game."

Sir Trevor Brooking Director of Football Development