Gibson identified Arsenal and Liverpool as clubs whose approach to youth development was hampering the England team and Steve McClaren, the former Middlesbrough manager. The accusations were based on the decision by Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, to follow the Arsenal model in importing youngsters from overseas because of a perceived lack of home-grown talent.
Since the summer of 2005, BenÍtez has signed teenagers from Argentina, Austria, Ghana, the Netherlands, Morocco, Paraguay and Spain, the vast majority of whom have yet to appear at first-team level.
Parry dismisses claims that Liverpool are ignoring local youngsters — one of last season's FA Youth Cup team, Danny Guthrie, appeared as a substitute at Newcastle on Saturday — but he feels that Benítez is right in putting the interests of the club before those of the country.
“From our perspective, our target is winning trophies,” Parry told BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme. “Our supporters care about Liverpool first and England second and our job and focus is to bring glory to Liverpool. But at the same time we have invested as much, if not more, than just about any other club on our academy. We will still continue to do our thing to develop young English players, we are very committed to that but the balance for us has to be winning things first.”
Parry said that on his trip to Texas this week to meet the club's new owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks, he will inspect the American Airlines Center — home of Hicks's Dallas Stars ice hockey team — to see whether elements of that stadium, including underground executive boxes known as “bunker seats”, could be incorporated into Liverpool's new stadium in Stanley Park, work on which is due to start next month.