Surely I cannot be the only person who thinks that this idea is ludicrous to say the least?
I understand the need to keep the interest in the game going in other countries but to have competitive games in other countries seems a little far fetched to say the least.
The English Premiership is already the most watched football league in the world with tv rights deals in nearly every country known to man, the top four clubs already have decent fanbases in these countries, particularly in the Far East where most of the proposed games would take place.
Without being disrepectful to some of the clubs currently playing in the league, who is going to want to watch Aston Villa versus Derby County for instance, these countries already get more games than we do via their respective TV deals and given the pick of matches are the really going to choose one of the “lesser” teams?
We also have the problems of cost for a long haul trip to play a game, are the smaller teams going to get enough revenue from this one game to cover the extra expense of flying all their staff out?
How will this affect supporters of these clubs, as a season ticket holder at Old Trafford are the premiership going to fly me out so I can watch United or will this fixture be deemed a neutral venue? According to the rules, fixtures in the league have to be either “home” or “away”, only cup games are played on neutral grounds and then only when they reach the semi-final stage.
Let’s come to some arrangement whereby everyone benefits, some sort of mini tournament played abroad maybe?
I have always been a supporter of the idea of lowering the number of teams in the Premiership to 17 or 18 to reduce the fixture congestion we already suffer from, adding more games is not going to help this nor in the long run is it going to help out our already ailing National side.
Come on everyone, see sense.
Leave a Reply