Former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein says the Premiership risk taking English football back into the dark ages if they allow foreign quotas to be introduced.

Dein, 64, said: "You don't want to go down to the lowest common denominator. Theo Walcott will only benefit from playing alongside Cesc Fabregas or Alexander Hleb. Everybody is trying to bring young English talent through, but if it isn't there, there is nothing you can do about it."

FIFA president Sepp Blatter's proposal, that clubs should be forced to field six English players with the quota of foreigners limited to five, was dismissed out of hand by Dein.

"To say it is controversial is an understatement," he said. "The biggest influx of foreign players has been in the last ten years. In 1996, Arsene Wenger came to Arsenal and inherited an all-English team; now it is completely the opposite. But we still have not won a World Cup since 1966, so what have we been doing for the past 40 years?"