Sir Trevor Brooking has called for Premier League clubs to make a greater investment in youth coaching.
The Football Association's director of football development was responding to comments from Rio Ferdinand that England's youngsters were technically backwards in comparison to their foreign counterparts.
Brooking said that steps have been made by the FA, including the launch of the EPPP academy system, but admitted that it would be nine years before any benefits will be seen.
But he believes there could be a more immediate impact if the country's top clubs made more of an effort to develop their homegrown talent and specifically called for better coaches to be employed on a full-time basis and on greater salaries.
"On the clubs we want them focusing on making the 16-year-old English players better than they have been," said Brooking.
"We believe you need full-time coaches. At the moment there is an issue in that those full-time places are being offered at pretty low salaries, around 15-16 grand, and they need to be recognised for the quality and getting ?40,000 to ?50,000.
"In the scheme of things that's not asking too much to invest in quality coaches in those age groups so that the 16-year-olds are going to be much better than they are at the moment.
"That's going to be our next big challenge.
"The salaries are definitely too low and we need to recognise coaching in the young age groups as a proper career for a full-time role.
"In those lower age groups most of them are part time and they are not really being supported as they should be."
