Is this the beginning of the End, of our beautiful game...?

[LSUY]

Well, the Japs appear to have knocked it on the head.



http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2254817,00.html

Come on, FIFA, pull the plug.

Apparently the Asian Football Federation is going to complain to FIFA because they don't want any Premier League games in the Far East.

 

[SpurSince57]

I can understand why. From what SAF said this has been leaked without any proper consultation with clubs, and so I doubt Scudamore and his fellow-incompetents bothered to run the idea past their overseas counterparts.

What a joke.

 

[JamesTheYiddo]

Well, the Japs appear to have knocked it on the head.



http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2254817,00.html

Come on, FIFA, pull the plug.

Great news

 

[N10toN17]

Is triks still pratling on? Someone give the fella a dictionary, he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word fair.

Comes into the thread with his high and mighty attitude, generally spouting a load of old bollocks and then starts yabbering on about the new world football league dreamed up in triks bedroom as he's knocking one off over Scudamore.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Our beautiful game died when sky first took over the prem

Our beautiful game had the sticky pads of the difibrulator (or whatever that thing that shocks people back to life is called) strapped to its flabby tits when sky came along and pushed the charge button.

Murdoch is a ****, but football was dying a slow death before sky came along. It's the greatest lovematch in sports history.

 

[SpurSince57]

I think most people have an ambivalent attitude towards Murdoch and Sky Sports, but although Sky will profit from this idiocy if it goes ahead, I very much doubt that they're the driving force behind it, or have had very much to do with it at all at this stage.

 

[speccy_spur]

As has probably been said already (have not read every page), are the public in the Asia, Far East or N.America going to give a toss about seeing Wigan play Blackburn? No.

Saw the bulletins yesterday, and all these fools kept muttering on about was 'product' and 'brand'. Coincidence that there is more american ownership in the premiership nowadays? ManU to be bought by Wal-Mart in the near future I predict.

 

[LSUY]

I can't be asked to look through all the pages to see whether this has been posted yet.

http://www.fsf.org.uk/petitions/no-to-game-39/index.php?ID=&di=#namelist

 

[Bill_Oddie]

Returning everso briefly to my branch of the Devil's Advocation Bureau (just to reiterate: the current proposals are tosh).

Would playing one match in New York, Singapore, or even Glasgow in January be any less fair than playing Newcastle, Boro and Sunderland away in January and have a run-in of Man U (H), Chelsea (A) and Arsenal (A)?

That is far more likely than the nightmare scenarios painted here.


And just, one more time: yes, of course, this is bilge. But lets focus on why it's bilge rather than painting improbable nightmare scenarios that have not happened yet.

 

[DFF]

£5m for each club involved. Nice little earner.

 

[KentuckyYid]

Blimey haven't the drama queens finished yet?

It's one extra game in the middle of January earning each club around $5m. Money is good for the game regardless if you like it or not although you'll do well to remember it's not your investment is it?

It'll give clubs more incentive to blood in some of their youngsters in early league cup games which can only be good for player development.

It's also a great opportunity for showcasing English club football and not show just showing the big four ala CL. All the clubs will get exposure with four going to each host city. This can only have great benefits for ALL the PL teams.

When Tottenham are beating Boro in NYC or Sydney as you watch it down the pub, you'll all be proud as punch and cheering the boys on as if you're there. Just like you do when they're playing away at grounds like Goodison Park... When I'm watching Spurs on TV over here, every time I lose my voice from shouting & cheering too much. I guess some of you won't be able to do that for the overseas game?

Mountains and molehills spring to mind!

 

[Bill_Oddie]

Not sure if anyone has read Ian HOlloways column on the Beeb yet, but there is an excellent suggestion in there, which I think would be a much more sensible place to start (not by Ollie, the editor of the column).

Play the Chairty Shield all over the world. That way the very best sides (which are the ones most overseas fans should want to see anyway) would play, and overseas fans would actually get something even better than a standard league game - trophy awarded, 1st chance to see new players, top sides, etc.

Interesting idea, anyway.

 

[nipponyid]

Its a prelude to a European Super League!

In Japan, we don't allow anyone to play a match that involves only foreign clubs and no Japanese clubs."

Oh right so the club world cup and the matches before that with the South American champions vs. European champions don`t count.

 

[SpurSince57]

The World Cup is a totally different matter, and the J-League champions take part in the WCC.

 

[yanno]

Hopefully, Scudamore's nonsense is dead in the water. Not only has Platini called it a "joke" on behalf of UEFA, but the Asian FAs will get FIFA to block it:

"In Asia there is dismay that 61% of all football revenues in the continent are channelled to the Premier League, which has suffocated development of the indigenous game. Mohamed bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation's president and Fifa executive committee member, has worked to counter the Premier League's attempts to colonise his continent.

"Manchester United were forced to withdraw from a close-season fixture in Kuala Lumpur last July after Malaysia's football association threatened legal action because the game was scheduled during its hosting of the Asian Cup.

"That is manifest in a plan to ban all foreign tours during the next tournament's finals, in Qatar in January. But the Premier League's proposals - to head overseas in January - would run counter to the AFC initiatives. "We have two windows to organise our competition," said Bin Hammam. "It is the calendar Fifa has drawn up. We respect this calendar and we are expecting understanding from the major clubs in Europe and the major leagues in Europe."
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2254991,00.html

 

[Stoof]

Blimey haven't the drama queens finished yet?

It's one extra game in the middle of January earning each club around $5m. Money is good for the game regardless if you like it or not although you'll do well to remember it's not your investment is it?

It'll give clubs more incentive to blood in some of their youngsters in early league cup games which can only be good for player development.

It's also a great opportunity for showcasing English club football and not show just showing the big four ala CL. All the clubs will get exposure with four going to each host city. This can only have great benefits for ALL the PL teams.

When Tottenham are beating Boro in NYC or Sydney as you watch it down the pub, you'll all be proud as punch and cheering the boys on as if you're there. Just like you do when they're playing away at grounds like Goodison Park... When I'm watching Spurs on TV over here, every time I lose my voice from shouting & cheering too much. I guess some of you won't be able to do that for the overseas game?

Mountains and molehills spring to mind!

I love those OVERSEAS DOMESTIC League games.

They're great. And not at all a load of bollocks.

Am I being thick or something? I notice all the arguments "for" this are (in the most part) by ex-pats moved on. Now I love you guys, you're awesome - but the domestic league stays domestically. That just has to happen. Anything outside of the league - that can't influence: championships, european qualification and relegation - is fine. Which basically means NOTHING to do with the League.

KY -- "you'll do well to remember it's not your investment" - I'm afraid it fucking is mate. Without the fans paying the gate fees, for the merchandising, for the holiday packages, for the Tottenham Hostpur credit cards - you'll find it's more our investment than anyone else.

And at the end of the day, it's not really an "investment" opportunity - it's a football club, plying its sporting trade in England where it competes in the English Premier League completing all the matches in England.

Surely that isn't up for debate? If it is - then I'm afraid I've missed something along the way, and there's been thousands wasted on my education. I'm almost a bit disgusted that people could suggest playing a league game outside of the country.

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE ... IN ENGLAND. And as much as I'm a ****, I'm afraid that's an "End of."

Richard Scudamore = Dick Dollarwhore.

 

[Bill_Oddie]

But what about the investment of overseas fans? I would love to know the figures, but surely that must be at least comparable (if not more than) what UK fans pay to support their team? There are, what? 10 million footy fans in England. There must be ten times that at the very least around the world.

And if we truly gave a shite about making it an ENGLISH Premier League, would we not ban foreign owners? Or players? Or supporters at the turnstile?

The Premier League has become far bigger than 99.9% of people realise. Danny Levy has been on Sportscentre a lot today saying it has become impossible to ignore looking into this idea.

I think the reason mostly expats are supporting - actually, thats not fair. I absolutely don't support this. I just don't oppose it. Especially as I've heard very little about it so far - this proposal, is that we understand how big EPL is, and how more could be done to bring the game to the fans: which is ironic given most English-based supporters objections to this is that this is the opposite of what they think will be achieved.

One final comment: It would be nice for some of the people objecting to this to at least admit that researching and debating this proposal has merit.

 

[worcestersauce]

Our beautiful game had the sticky pads of the difibrulator (or whatever that thing that shocks people back to life is called) strapped to its flabby tits when sky came along and pushed the charge button.

Murdoch is a ****, but football was dying a slow death before sky came along. It's the greatest lovematch in sports history.

BC it really saddens me that you believe this, I know Murdoch and all the other sky propogandists claim this to be the case but it isn't true.
I do remember that sky was dying a not so slow death before they started covering football, football saved sky not the other way around, I don't forget!!
What exactly has sky done to save football? Television coverage was starting to take off in a big way and sky jumped the lead that's all.

Football in this country owes sky nothing!!

Sorry to disagree but I couldn't let it pass(unless you were toungue in cheek and I'm a bit slow).

 

[yanno]

One final comment: It would be nice for some of the people objecting to this to at least admit that researching and debating this proposal has merit.

Sorry, Bill, I disagree.

This feels to me like a half-baked, poorly thought through, management consultant idea for "maximising global brand value" at the expense of ordinary fans.

There is simply no way of adding a 39th game to the EPL schedule which will not render the entire competition unfair, and Scudamore has explicitly acknowledged this in his Orwellian doublespeak utterances.

So, if there's no 39th game, the proposal could only work by moving a regular home or away fixture to "neutral" territory at the end of a long haul flight somewhere. For this to be fair, each club would have to have one home and one away match played in an overseas venue each season, and I don't see any value in this.

I'm all for spreading the beautiful game, and Spurs have done this successfully in recent years with, for instance, pre-season tours of South Africa and visits to townships. I'm totally against this "exploitation of global brand value" BS at the expense of ordinary fans.

 

[AW?]

I've heard drunks down my local come up with better ideas than this load of wank.