Stoke boss Tony Pulis has expressed his fears about the future of English football as billionaire owners flood into the Premier League.

Pulis, in a frank chat with TEAMtalk's Insider Mark Holmes, revealed that he feels the likes of Manchester City's new owners are only interested in money.

He is also worried there will be even more foreign stars coming into the Premier League, restricting the chances of the best young English players and also increasing the gap even further between the top four teams and the other 88 league clubs.

The Potters boss also warned the Football Association that they have a "massive responsibility" to protect the future of the game and the clubs outside of the Premier League.

Nine of the current 20 top clubs are run by foreign owners and that figure is almost certainly set to increase in the near future with Mike Ashley desperately trying to flog Newcastle to Middle Eastern investors.

Roman Abramovic was the first of the new breed of big-money, big-ego owners and his English-record £140million takeover soon reaped success, with his second season at Stamford Bridge finishing with Chelsea's first league title for 50 years.

The Russian has since splashed out around £400million on transfers and, although he has recouped plenty with sales, it is unarguable that his spending has changed English football forever.

The likes of Englishmen Shaun Wright-Phillips, Scott Parker and Glenn Johnson were all bought for big money and subsequently frozen out, while the likes of bright young talent Scott Sinclair have barely been given a sniff.

And Pulis is worried that, as more billionaires seek a new play thing, more English talent will get "lost in the wash". He is also unhappy that many of these new owners have not got a history in football like his own chairman Peter Coates, who grew up as a Stoke fan.

Pulis said: "There are billionaires coming into the league now who have no affection or affiliation with any football club at all.

"All they're concerned about is being top of the pile and making shed loads of money and they'll ride roughshod over everybody else to do that.

"So the FA has got a massive responsibility over the next five or six years because there'll be more people coming in, like the Arabs have done at Manchester City, cherry picking the big clubs.

"We've got to make sure we look after the whole footballing nation and not just the top four or five, otherwise everyone else will get pushed even further back.

"These billionaire owners will try to get the best players in the world and that will make it harder for the best young English players to be brought through.

"There's now players at Manchester City that could end up getting lost in the wash and end up at the likes of Stoke or Hull instead. So a club like us has got to be bright enough to pick up those."

Pulis spoke passionately of his love of the English game, but he has warned the FA that they must protect the whole league structure to look after the millions of fans watching football outside of the Premier League each week.

He said: "The FA has got a responsibility to protect football's structure. We're not just a nation of four teams; we're actually the best footballing nation in the world because we have four of the most competitive divisions.

"There's no other country that has a second division like the Championship but even dropping down to League One and Two, we have to protect that.

"There are 92 football league clubs in this country, as well as a very good part-time base, and if these billionaires continue to pile all the money into the top four clubs then they will continue to pull away.

"I personally think there should be a levy on the top clubs which says they have to invest a certain amount of money into football in this country.

"We've got to make sure we get some of the money from there to be invested into grass roots so the rest of football moves forward with the top four.

"Let's not forget that millions of people watching football every Saturday in this country, and they're not all at the top four clubs.

"So whether it's Rochdale or Scunthorpe, we've got to find a way of giving something back to them so they can keep on improving and so the nation remains a football nation."

Pulis also predicted there will soon be a world club competition as well as the Champions League, and that the Premier League will take on even less significance.

"You can't stop progress and if the powers that be decide that is progress then we'll just have to get on with it. But with all the money coming into football in this country going to the big clubs, we must make sure we protect the other clubs.

"They are institutions and they're supported by people who were born into it. These foreign owners have got to understand that the support is tribal and we simply have to make sure these people are looked after."

What do you make of Pulis' views? Do you fear for the future of those clubs outside the top five in the Premier League? And could a world club competition really happen? Use our story comment facility to let us know your thoughts.