FA set England target to win World Cup in 2022

New Football Association chairman Greg Dyke throws down the gauntlet to England. Picture: Getty Images

Dyke deliberately chose an international week to make a lengthy and wide-ranging speech outlining his concerns for the game.

Although he insisted his address should not be interpreted as a declaration of war on the Premier League, his major worries centre on the diminishing number of Englishmen in the top flight.

Dyke has pledged to set up a commission, that will include Premier League representation, to find a solution to the problem. And given his target for the England team, he intends work to begin pretty quickly.

“I want to set the whole of English football two targets,” he said. “The first is for the England team to at least reach the semi-finals of the European Championships in 2020. The second is for us to win the World Cup in 2022.

“To show we are making progress I’d like to see us do well in the Under-20s World Cup in 2017 with the objective of that squad then moving on to the Under-21 European Championships.

“Are these realistic targets? Without targets what are we working towards? Some will say that targets are only burdening our players with more pressure but top players have to be able to handle pressure if they want to be winners – and we want to be winners.”

As Dyke pointed out, the 2020 mission could be aided by England having home advantage for some of their fixtures under Uefa’s multi-host idea.

What he didn’t mention was that the following World Cup is due to be played in searing temperatures in Qatar, which as it presently stands is still gearing up to host a summer tournament.

That competition will almost certainly be switched to winter, a move that will not go down well with the Premier League.

And the notion they might need to neuter their own competition – which Dyke accepts is the “most successful league in the world” – will make them feel uncomfortable too given the vast amounts of money it generates.

Crucially though, the FA have no control over it, which explains why Dyke is trying for the diplomatic route, even if his concerns are shared by many, the vast majority of whom he believes are ardent fans of the national side rather than disinterested bystanders.

“Television ratings show quite clearly that fans certainly want a successful English team,” he said.

“Club matches occasionally get audiences in excess of ten million when teams are playing an important match on free to air television. But when England are playing in the finals of the World Cup or the European Championships as many as 20 million people watch a game.”

Yet the summer was spent obsessing about Jose Mourinho, David Moyes, Manuel Pellegrini and other Premier League affairs.

Only when England’s Under-21 and Under-20 squads performed so abysmally at their respective competitions did consciences start to get pricked.

And Dyke feels there is a reason for that failure – and others will surely follow unless his fears are addressed.

“Last season’s figure for the Premier League was 32 per cent English players starting games,” he said.

“Do we let this trend continue? What happens when that declines to 25 per cent, to 20 per cent or even 15 per cent? Do we still ignore the problem and hope it goes away? Or do we take action now?

“I know this speech could be written up as ‘Dyke declares war on the Premier League’ but it genuinely isn’t that. English football has a problem. English football has to find a solution together.

“It is crucial that English football finds a solution without undermining the undoubted success of the Premier League. We don’t want to kill the golden goose in the search of the golden egg.

“But the situation is very serious. English football is a tanker which needs turning.

“And we all have a responsibility to do our best to reverse this frightening trend because if we fail we will be letting English football down and we will be letting the nation down.”