Remember when legendary Aussie Rules coach Kevin Sheedy suggested that the AFL play its entire Week 1 schedule outside of Australia? Remember how crazy that sounded? Apparently, a completely different football league thinks that idea may not be so crazy after all.
The English Premier League is considering the idea of staging some matches around the rest of the world.
At a meeting in London on Thursday, all 20 clubs agreed to explore a proposal to extend the season to 39 games.
Those 10 extra games would be played at five different venues, with cities bidding for the right to stage them.
There had been talk of staging one Premier League game per year outside of England. (I’m sure Tom Hicks and George Gillett would be happy to give up a Liverpool home game if it means big bucks in America, Anfield supporters be damned.) Still, adding an extra game and causing an unbalanced schedule seems a little over the top. It’s almost as if the Premier League is suggesting this outlandish idea to get fans to buy into a smaller idea — just like Kevin Sheedy is probably doing — because guess what? Fans are already balking at this proposal.
The Football Supporters’ Federation has challenged the Premier League to scrap plans to play matches abroad if a significant majority of fans are opposed to the idea. …
Let’s face facts, the sole motivation for this is the Premier League to make more money – aren’t they making enough already?
This displays a complete disregard for the proud traditions of the English game, as well as a crass lack of consideration for football supporters in general. Basically, it’s a case of “We’ve had their money here, now – where else can we get people to put their hands in their pockets.”
I get where they’re coming from, but asking the Premier League if it’s making enough money is like asking Cristiano Ronaldo if he’s banged enough hookers. The answer is almost certainly, “No.” The idea of holding Premier League games overseas isn’t going to go away any time soon, just like the idea of holding NFL and AFL regular season games outside of their home countries won’t go away.
There’s no way that proposal goes through as is, though. Messing with the integrity of the league schedule for the sake of global ducats goes too far, even for the Premier League.
1 response so far ↓
1 a different Dave // Feb 8, 2008 at 3:39 am
An unbalanced schedule has to be a throw-away scare tactic because it will never happen. Nevermind the fans, the clubs themselves would never agree to it.