At the Footballer of the Year ceremony at the end of 2005, Blatter presented another award of his own making: the President's Special Award.

It is awarded to those who have made a special contribution to world football during the year.

This year, the award was presented to a Chelsea man who is no stranger to him.

Swedish referee Frieske.

This referee is the one who officiated the match between Chelsea and Barcelona in the Champions League last season and was bombarded by Mourinho after the game, and he was accused of violating the rules by meeting Barcelona boss Rijkaard at half-time and affecting the fairness of the game!

The matter caused a stir last season, that is, in the first half of this year, and Frisker even received death threats and was forced to announce his retirement from the refereeing world.

Not long after, Blatter presented this special award to Friske, which seemed to be a sign of comfort to the outside world, but it also implied that Frisker was a victim.

He also made a statement about Chelsea: "If there are only five foreigners in a team's 11 starters, then they will focus on the establishment of the youth system, FIFA is considering such an issue, the limit on the number of foreign players is one way, if Chelsea are only allowed to have five foreign players, then Abramovich will not go all over the world to buy the best players and break the market balance." What is happening at Chelsea at the moment should not have happened at all, and it leads to chaos. ”

Although Blatter's spearhead is directed at Chelsea, the outside world still believes that Millwall, who carries the banner of the Premier League and establishes a ruling dynasty in Europe, is also under attack!

Why?

Take a look at Millwall's main starters. Even take a look at their first team.

How many homegrown players are there?

Almost invisible!

But Blatter would never dare to accuse Millwall openly!

Because the focus of his elaboration is on the cultivation of the youth training system.

And Millwall is the whole of Europe. and even the most outstanding representative of youth training in the world.

UEFA did not dare to make a fuss about this point against Millwall.

to the current UEFA rules. Millwall has the highest number of youth recruits for the Champions League every season!

Local development has nothing to do with the nationality of the player.

Just like from the start of two seasons, if Arsenal play in Europe, Cesc Fabregas will be labelled as Arsenal's academy and will not have a dime to do with Barcelona or Spain, which will be clearly marked in UEFA's official records.

It's like Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Villa, Alonso. De Rossi and other players are clearly marked on the official website of UEFA: Millwall Academy!

Blatter dares to make this point clear and criticize Millwall, which is tantamount to going against UEFA and even the European Union, which is to set himself on fire.

And after Aldridge led the team back to London, he still picked out this topic.

To outsiders, he was uncharacteristically speaking up for his sworn rivals Chelsea.

Millwall during the Club World Cup.

The 17th round of the Premier League went on as usual, and Arsenal's league table this season was very bad, and the table in the strong dialogue was also disappointing, especially the slaughter at home by Millwall, which made Wenger sigh with regret in his midnight dream. So when Highbury welcomed Chelsea, Arsene Wenger didn't have any face. After a conservative game against Chelsea, there are already fans calling for Arsene Wenger to step down, and he has to bow his head for the sake of results in order to keep his position.

Chelsea are back at the top of the table after a point from Highbury, but Millwall have played a game less.

Aldridge was at a press conference before returning to England to prepare for the replay against Birmingham.

In response to Blatter's criticism of the Premier League, he specifically named Chelsea's remarks and expressed his opinion.

"One of FIFA's responsibilities is to promote the development of football, Mr. President said that Chelsea is not doing well, I don't give an opinion, I just want to express my position, take the players in the Millwall team as an example, Villa lived in a difficult environment when he was a child, Millwall brought him to London and let him receive the best football training, imagine that if we don't do this, Villa's growth environment will be different, and the quality of training will definitely not reach the level in London, this is the reality, the material gap, It's very intuitive, and there is a very obvious effect gap for players to grow in a system. ”

In fact, UEFA and FIFA have introduced some policies to restrict the transfer of young players over the years, one of the purposes of which is to prevent clubs like Millwall from prematurely poaching the talent resources belonging to other clubs.

Therefore, Millwall has been following the rules all these years, and will not force any young talent to be poached, and if he can talk to the club, then everyone will talk according to the rules, and if he can't talk, the business will not be benevolent, and there will be no dirty poaching methods in secret.

But from Aldridge's standpoint, he doesn't particularly agree with FIFA and UEFA's approach.

Like in the future, Chelsea will be punished, Barcelona will also be punished, the reasons for the punishment are different, Chelsea is targeted, because the reason for the punishment of Chelsea is the irregularities in the process of recruitment.

This is debatable, because the agents in the football circle are tacitly aware that almost no club will follow the rules to bring in reinforcements, and everyone will use some side methods to facilitate the transfer of players!

Of course, a club like Millwall, which is a conformist club, is now a creature on the verge of extinction.

This is naturally related to Millwall's dispute with Ajax that almost went to court, Aldridge just didn't want to deal with this kind of trouble, because of small losses, distraction, and it was not cost-effective.

But other clubs almost all have various transfer operation violations.

But only Chelsea was punished, which is targeted!

If Barcelona is fined in the future, it is an illegal recruitment, which has little to do with the recruitment process.

They brought in players who FIFA banned from being able to bring in players, such as Under-18 players who could not make international transfers.

Standing on the club's standpoint, of course, it will not hesitate to protect its own talent resources.

But what if you put yourself in the player's shoes?

Is it better to train in Asia at an early age, or is it better to be trained at a young age in La Masia?

The players themselves should also have the right to choose!

It's about the player's own future! Your own life!

Just as parents of young children will do everything possible to send their children to prestigious schools, if the government introduces a policy that a child can only choose a school within the scope of the country, and is not allowed to go abroad, or even choose a school across provinces and cities, how much dissatisfaction will this cause?

There are no conditions and no capital, local school choice, there are opportunities and capital, but they can't send their children to a better environment to cultivate talents, this reason doesn't make sense at all.

On Millwall, Aldridge doesn't particularly care whether Millwall's squad has English players, after all, the background of East London is a gathering place for immigrants, and a considerable number of Millwall's fans are descendants of immigrants, plus they are now an international team, and the marketing goal is global, foreign fans who care how many English players Millwall has?

However, FIFA really wants to promote the implementation of the foreign aid system in the Premier League step by step, and may even cancel the unlimited nationality policy of homegrown cultivation in a targeted manner, which will be very detrimental to Millwall's future development.

Aldrich is not absolutely confident in this matter.

Despite the history he has experienced, the development of the Premier League has not changed.

But now he is experiencing a lot of changes in European football, policy changes are one of them, and even changes in other continents, perhaps this is the butterfly effect, such as Brazil introduced the age limit for domestic player transfers earlier, such as UEFA introduced the age limit for international transfer of players earlier.

Millwall and Chelsea are bitter enemies though.

However, when it comes to opposing UEFA and FIFA, Aldridge's attitude is very firm.

Millwall and Chelsea are behind closed doors, and how they fight is a family affair in the Premier League.

It doesn't matter if you tear your face.

But when the door is opened to usher in external pressure, as the two most eye-catching teams in the Premier League at this time, the relationship between each other can be described as cold!

Now let's watch the show on the wall, maybe in the future Chelsea will be punished, it will be Millwall's turn to be targeted, and even Millwall may be shot before Chelsea!

After some remarks in defence of Chelsea, a reporter from the Guardian on Fleet Street took the conversation to the just-concluded Club World Cup.

"Sir Hall, in a survey conducted by this newspaper, 49% of fans asked: Is the Club World Cup a waste of time? The answer to this question is 'yes', do you think it shows that the Club World Cup has a low status in the hearts of fans? ”

Aldridge smiled faintly: "I don't comment, anyway, I think at least if you ask the fans: is the World Cup a waste of time, the number of fans who will choose the answer 'yes' will definitely not exceed 1%, if it really exceeds, it means that most of the fans who were surveyed, the national team they support did not enter the World Cup, oh, if the World Cup is changed to biennial, it will be difficult to say." ”

There was laughter at the scene.

The Fleet Street reporters tacitly threw Aldrich an appreciative look.

In a word, the news is here again.

Aldridge: This is a riback at Blatter!

Blatter is not only keen on using the Club World Cup to make money, but also advocates the absurd proposal that the World Cup will be held every two years.

The "Guardian" reporter continued to ask: "The Club World Cup reflects the disparity between the rich and the poor in world football, Millwall's player value, player salary expenditure, player squad composition, etc., all have a huge gap with the participating teams in the same period, even several times, dozens of times, hundreds of times surpassing the opponent, such a chicken rib game, Millwall went thousands of miles to compete, but in the final also let the main players spend a lot of energy, and now back in the Premier League to participate in the make-up match, there is a difficult devil's schedule behind, don't you consider these?" Or do you care more about the FIFA Club World Cup, even though the fans think it's a waste of time? ”

Aldrich's brow furrowed. (To be continued......)