Richard Scudamore has hit back at Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, and Michel Platini, his Uefa counterpart, accusing them of living in the past. The chief executive of the Premier League was responding to criticism from Blatter and Platini that there were too many foreign owners and players in England.

“We are living in a sophisticated country and fans know what modern Britain is all about,” Scudamore said. “It doesn’t matter if you are foreign, whatever that means. It’s about how well you run your club. No one lives in isolationist, parochial times.”

Scudamore conceded that we are living in “economically interesting times” but ruled out a salary cap in the Premier League because it would be impossible to implement.

The chief executive’s controversial proposal for a 39th game received a boost yesterday when the president of the Asian Football Confederation said that he had changed his mind about staging matches after having dinner with Scudamore in London this week. “It’s up to us to improve our level of football, but we would like the Premier League to support that process,” Mohamed Bin Hammam said. “There’s a lot of knowledge the Premier League can transfer to us.”