The U.K. economy may have just exited recession by posting its strongest quarterly gross domestic product growth in five years, but according to a recently published book, the country will have a third world economy by 2014.
Using analogies of famous English football teams, soccer to those in America, authors Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson draw a picture of Britain in decline.
(Read more: 'Good Recession to Boost UK - But Not Until Next Year')
"The U.K.'s economy is like Aston Villa, the English football club from Birmingham: The club was great once, but is great no longer," Elliott and Atkinson write in their book "Going South: Why Britain Will Have a Third World Economy by 2014."
According to the book, "public policy in the U.K. [in the past 100 years] has been conducted like the economy is a Manchester United or an Arsenal, but it isn't."
"Not only will 2014 mark 100 years since the start of the First World War, it will also be a century since we were last an undisputed economic leader and superpower," the authors write. "Britain is an undeveloping economy, a submerging rather than emerging market."
Elliott and Atkinson, both journalists, argue that the past 100 years have seen "quick fix after quick fix for the U.K. economy."
The only hope for the U.K. to get out of recession is by "confronting the truth," they said. (Read more: )
The two writers previously authored "Fantasy Island" (2007), describing the legacy of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and "The Gods That Failed" (2008), which focused on "delusional, faith-based" market thinking.
The book does not suggest that the U.K. will get a third-world status because its gross domestic product per head will dive to sub-Saharan levels, but because "public and commercial services work badly, the average person is becoming poorer rather than richer, the economy has been pulled out of shape, and government in the widest sense is dysfunctional."
The book points out that Britain last ran a current-account surplus in 1983 and has been in deficit since then, borrowing money from countries like China and selling commercial assets to foreigners.
Overseas investors currently possess nearly 200 billion pounds ($320 billion) more of British assets than British investors own overseas, the book says.
Britain's decline since its imperial age has been well documented by various authors, including Harvard University Historian Niall Ferguson in his book "Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World," published in 2004.
But Britain has been facing a host of newer challenges since the economic crisis, including rising debt levels and a 13 percent decline in real national incomes since 2008. Yet, the British pound and British government bonds have rallied as investors have sought safe havens and as Britain's economy has done better than its euro zone peers.
According to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos-MORI on behalf of "The Economist," 52 percent of Britons still consider the economy to be among the most important issues facing Britain today, but that was a 9 percent drop since August and the lowest level of concern in 16 months.