The FA forfeited any right to lecture on the sanctity and uniqueness of the international game the day it appointed a foreign manager. Indeed, Arteta's five years with Everton indicates greater commitment to English football than Sven Goran Eriksson or Capello had shown before being offered the manager's job.

Major nations, including Germany, Spain and Portugal, have long considered residency and citizenship issues when it comes to selecting players. How utterly pretentious for England to pretend to be above this, while importing Italian expertise wholesale to run the team.

International football is a simple concept: the best of yours against the best of theirs. Arteta's time at Goodison Park makes him one of us more than Eriksson or Capello. Also the manager has greater influence than any player; so by appointing an Italian, the FA are as good as cheating, even if they break no FIFA rules.

There are all sorts of rationalisations now advanced to justify the appointment of a foreign coach. The laziest is to accuse critics of xenophobia, and the most fashionable is extrapolation. It is asked, sarcastically, whether all assistants, coaches, kit men and laundry workers have to be English too?

The answer, of course, is yes, yes, yes and yes. Seriously, if they can't find an Englishman capable of washing the kit, the FA truly does need overhauling.

As for the argument that no Englishman is sufficiently qualified to coach England: tough. If our system is so flawed it is producing such limited coaching talent, then the national team should be made to suffer. Throwing the riches of the English game at the problem to mask our own failings is not right.

So having broken one of the basic tenets of international football, the FA is in no position to advise Capello on whether Arteta, a Spaniard, should be selected. He qualifies for England the same way Cacau, a Brazilian, qualifies for Germany. We cannot have it all ways. We cannot pilfer talent from our rivals one day and wrap ourselves in the flag the next.

The argument that picking Arteta is a snub to young English players cuts both ways; how must young English coaches feel, then, to be so thoroughly rejected by the system that schooled them?