EPL to go Global

[johntheclaret]

As the Premier League is thinking of adding an extra game to the schedule (which will be played abroad), here is a pretty good article from the Sunday Times.

Premier greed goes global
Fans are treated like mugs again by football’s merciless money menRod Liddle
The Premier League and the Football Association have been altogether too timid. Their proposal is that clubs in our top league play 10 games abroad every season, with cities bidding billions of pounds to stage mouth-watering encounters such as Wigan versus Derby.

This, the Premier League asserts, would be exploiting the league’s strong franchise as a “global phenomenon” (copyright Richard Scudamore) to the full. Well, not quite to the full. They would be exploiting their strong franchise to the full if they played all their games abroad, and my plan would have a certain logic to it. Teams owned by foreigners, managed by foreigners and containing almost exclusively foreign players would at last be situated in their natural milieu: somewhere else, abroad, the last connection to the places with which they are nominally associated dissolved altogether.

For Arsenal, one week in Riyadh, the next in Tokyo. For Chelsea, one week in Vladivostok, the next in Archangel. For Bolton, one week in Hebron, the next in Ulan Bator. This would send the right message to English fans: you count for absolutely nothing, you mugs. Watch it on TV or start saving up your air miles. Either way, we couldn’t give a toss.

In fairness to the authorities, this is the very message they are sending out already. Yet my version would have about it a greater whiff of finality. I am still not sure, mind, as to what cities in the world are so enmired in misery, so bereft of entertainment, that they would wish to stump up money for the pleasure of hosting a game between Wigan and Derby. The only two places I can think of, offhand, are Wigan and Derby. Perhaps they could bid against each other for the right to play the game at home. You might argue that the proposal at least acknowledges the truth behind that tired old joke about Manchester United fans not coming from Manchester. Well, now they won’t have to travel to Manchester for at least one home game, from 2011.

The plan was announced a day after we remembered the terrible events of Munich in 1958; a genuine tragedy from a simpler, gentler and more honest time. Today, Manchester United have become Britain’s answer to Starbucks or KFC. I’m sure Duncan Edwards would have been absolutely delighted.

The sheer, whoreish, money-grabbing greed of what Scudamore et al are proposing should appal all fans; but nothing the football authorities do appals any more, nothing really shocks. Certainly not where the prospect of trousering vast sums of money is concerned. We might still snigger at the delusions of some of those chairmen who endorsed the idea, mind. I saw that famous purveyor of porno-underwear – “split crotch panties, we got ’em, hurry, hurry while stocks last” – David Gold of Birmingham City, enthusing about it on the BBC news. Come off it, mate – do you seriously think Birmingham City are going to be in this circus? If you survive this year, which is looking doubtful, you’ll be back in the Championship by May 2009.

But then I don’t suppose Gold gives a monkey’s about that, either, as sooner or later Birmingham City will be sold like a sack of greenish-tinged spuds to the highest bidder. There’s room for only one money team in Birmingham - and it’s called Aston Villa.

We might have a quick snigger, too, at the oft-repeated statement that the financial benefits that accrue from this mid-winter jamboree will percolate down to the “grass roots” of the game. Is there anybody alive in Britain stupid enough to believe such guff? The financial benefits will percolate about as far as the nearest Bentley dealer-ship or Cristal warehouse. We have seen, this season, the level of concern shown by the FA for the “grass roots” of the game; club after club in the lower leagues in desperate financial trouble, no fewer than three from what normal people call Division Three suffering points deduction for going into administration, four more from the Championship and below hovering on the brink.

The Premier League’s proposals, and all that stuff about supporting the grass roots, were announced on the day Bournemouth succumbed to administration. Bournemouth - and Luton, Cardiff, Swindon, et al - are the grass roots of football, the places at which our future internationals will learn the game. Please, Mr Scudamore, don’t insult them – and us – by pretending you care whether or not they exist. The Premier League has been, since its inception, an operation in the art of exclusion, a brazen and highly successful mechanism for strangling the stragglers, for ensuring an ever-greater proportion of the game’s wealth flows into the bank accounts of the richest clubs and away from the clubs that need it most. Try to join this elite and you will find the drawbridge has been pulled up: clubs will bankrupt themselves aiming for what, 15 years ago, was a legitimate ambition, to play in the top division.

We ought to remember that the dinky size of the Premier League, 20 teams, was envisaged so that the poor, tired players were not overburdened with games. This was shown to be utter cant when the clubs clamoured to be part of a European Champions League (rather than a straightforward knockout competition); many more games there, then. Now they are up for still more football – 39 league games each, rather than 38, and that extra game involving the hassle of foreign travel. I suppose they can always put out the reserve team for every FA Cup match, the ladies side could contest the Carling Cup.

The additional matches – Franchise Utd versus Franchise Wanderers – are scheduled for January. It is probable these games will be crucial come the end of the season. I wonder how the fans will react, especially season ticket-holders, to being disbarred from watching one of the season’s defining games. I don’t suppose anyone at the FA or Premier League has thought about this or, if they have, cares one way or the other. So take out a subscription and watch it on TV will be the response. Sooner or later, though, the fans will have had enough. Even Premier League football fans can be duped for only so long.

The backlash

"You already have no English coach, you have no English players and maybe now you will have no clubs playing in England. It’s a joke" - Michel Platini, Uefa president

"If the money is the first priority, forget it, because it will become a circus. If it is just to make £5m it’s not worth it" - Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager

"Let’s hear what the fans say. You have to listen to their views. If the money is going back into football and helping keep the price of tickets down, then that is something I think people would want to take into account" - Gordon Brown, the prime minister

The Premier League plan

- All 20 clubs to play one extra game abroad during a January weekend in 2011. Fixtures will be decided by a draw before the 2010-11 campaign starts with the top fi ve teams at the end of the previous season seeded to be kept apart

- Five cities, such as Los Angeles, Sydney and Dubai, would bid for the right to each host two games, all over the same weekend. The 39-match season will be run as a minimum three-year experiment. Clubs could pocket as much as £5m each per game plus a share of TV rights

- Before the end of 2010 the Premier League will consult clubs, fans, managers, players, referees and the Football League. Potential hosts will be contacted before the start of the new bidding process for domestic television rights in May 2010

- Points will count towards the Premier League season and time zones mean that, in theory, UK television audiences could watch every match live

Singapore

Kick-off 8pm (UK noon) The wealthy island nation will probably need to outbid Hong Kong. Southeast Asia’s smallest country already attracts big crowds when Premier League sides tour in the close-season.

Pop 3.6m

Temp 23-29°C

Los Angeles

Kick-off 1pm (UK 9pm) Major League Soccer still lags way behind top US sports and Alexei Lalas, of Los Angles Galaxy, warns that only the top teams will draw big crowds

Pop 13m

Temp 9-20°C

Dubai

Kick-off 8pm (UK 4pm) The United Arab Emirates is hungry for Premier League football – the government’s investment arm has been trying to buy Liverpool for more than a year

Pop 1.4m

Temp 14-23°C

Bombay

Kick-off 8pm (UK 2.30pm) With a population almost four times that of Scotland, Bombay could offer big crowds. Sadly, the local Cooperage stadium holds only 12,000 people

Pop 18m

Temp 19-29°C

Sydney

Kick-off 8pm (UK 9am) A large immigrant fan base already provides 90,000 crowds for internationals, while leading Aussie stars, such as Everton’s Tim Cahill earn their living in England

Pop 3.7m

Temp 19-26°C

[Dirko]

Their proposal is that clubs in our top league play 10 games abroad every season, with cities bidding billions of pounds to stage mouth-watering encounters such as Wigan versus Derby.

I am still not sure, mind, as to what cities in the world are so enmired in misery, so bereft of entertainment, that they would wish to stump up money for the pleasure of hosting a game between Wigan and Derby. The only two places I can think of, offhand, are Wigan and Derby.

Please get a Derby game to Hindmarsh...please !

[MightyEagles]

How about a Liverpool game at AAMI.

[redden whites]

I am still not sure, mind, as to what cities in the world are so enmired in misery, so bereft of entertainment, that they would wish to stump up money for the pleasure of hosting a game between Wigan and Derby. The only two places I can think of, offhand, are Wigan and Derby.

Absolute champagne comedy ol cock