Do you support this move or are you against it? Make your voice heard in our poll at the end of this article.
The English Premier League clubs are considering a proposal to play some matches at overseas venues starting from the 2011/2012 season.
The idea is to extend the regular season to 39 games, with the extra 10 games being played at 5 select venues around the world (US, Middle East and Far East Asia are the obvious 3 destinations, but will we see clubs going to Africa, South East Asia, South America and Australia as well?). The proposal suggests picking actual fixtures by draw, although the star clubs may not always be paired with each other to avoid drab fixtures like Derby County v Bolton Wanderers being played in Buenos Aires to an empty stadium (I couldn’t resist…).
Why, you ask? Chris from EPL Talk puts it succinctly:
The reason why the Premier League is considering this revolutionary idea is because the international TV rights deal could soon be worth more than the domestic TV deal in the United Kingdom. If this does happen, which looks very probable, then the Premier League will value the international rights deal as being able to produce more revenue for its clubs.
It’s for the MONEY! And the direct (and indirect) support (financial) of millions…and millions of Premier League fans around the world (all of whom support Manchester United, or Chelsea, or Arsenal, depending on who was champion when they started watching – another reason why Liverpool is struggling to attract worldwide support for their takeover bid – if it was Manchester United (lots of fans) or Arsenal (very active online community) they would have put up the money by now…).
“The market in the United Kingdom is becoming saturated and it is the overseas market which is now the big target area.
A number of top-flight clubs already play matches around the world as they seek to capitalise on the huge global interest in the English game.”
Some simple questions that have difficult answers:
Will the points from these games count?
I sure hope so…
Aren’t the home fans (and away fans, for clubs that are actually supported) being shortchanged?
That problem seems to have been neatly sidestepped by adding an extra game in the season instead of shifting a regular fixture. And considering the support of the Premier League, you can expect matches to be mostly sold-out for the top 5-6 clubs, and the rest, well, the Premier League are excellent marketers and I’m sure they will be able to fill all the seats for 80-90 percent, if not all, games.
Will my club ever come play in my country?
Indian fans would be most likely to ask this question and the answer is yes, there is a very good chance that a top Premier League club will play in India in the next decade. Pakistan – well, I seriously doubt it.
Australian fans – yes again, I think a Premiership club will go there as well. Not so sure about South America, although South Africa will be a popular destination too.
One more match in an already congested fixture list?
Yes, one more game, and frankly, one that will help build the profile of these clubs and the league as a whole abroad, and as such would be far more important than a domestic cup game (shoot me if you will).
Fixture congestion is a different issue and reducing one game or adding one game is not going to make much of a difference. What WILL change things is if we rearranged the structure of the league to introduce a winter break, and that’s a different debate.
When will they decide?
A formal decision will not be taken until the annual Premier League meeting in June. Considering the financial benefits, I doubt that any club will disagree, although the technicalities of managing
No local fans = no atmosphere = soulless games! Is this really football?
If it’s for points, then yes, it really is football, no matter where you play it. If it’s not for points, then the games become meaningless friendlies and lose their commercial value. The atmosphere at the recent United friendly in Riyadh was quite good, even if there weren’t any ‘traditional’ United support there.
So how much money is really involved?
From the above-linked BBC article:
The Premier League’s income from the sale of overseas TV rights has already increased from £178m in 2001 to £625m for the current deal that runs until 2010.Broadcaster NowTV paid around £100m for the rights to Hong Kong alone.
Premier League games are broadcast to over 600m homes in 202 countries worldwide, while an estimated 1bn people watched the Premier League game between Manchester United and Arsenal in November 2007.
There’s money there alright, just not in the Wigan v Birmingham fixtures…
But won’t this turn supporters against the clubs?
EPL Talk makes some excellent arguments for this point, all of which you can read here. I strongly disagree though – the emotional ties that bond a club to its local support will still remain, and only sentimental fools would consider this as betrayal if their clubs go and play an EXTRA fixture in the season at an overseas venue. Thing is, football is full of sentimental fools and devoid of reason. Oh well…
The co-chairman of the Football Supporters Federation, Malcom Clarke, had this to say:
“I’m fairly confident in predicting that the overwhelming majority of football supporters will be totally opposed to this proposal.
This is yet another case of the Premier League threatening the tradition of our game simply to follow money.
The idea that teams can play a league game in a place where their supporters won’t be able to go and watch them will be totally opposed by the vast majority of supporters.
What I want to do is put a challenge to the Premier League to abandon this completely if the majority of supporters turn out to be against it.”
Sure, let’s put it to the supporters – hang on, are we going to include those supporters who would die for their clubs around the world, or is it a case of only England-based supporters qualifying as true supporters?
Lawrie Sanchez:
“Other national associations won’t be happy about the Premier League coming into their game, taking sponsors, taking advertising, taking revenue from their game.”
Wouldn’t it increase football’s exposure in those regions?
Any more questions – list them below and I’ll add answers here in the article.
Should Premier League Clubs Play An Extra Fixture Overseas Every Season?
Make your voice heard in the poll below:
Peejay, thing is United the club wouldn’t complain about that would they? Look at the way they treated ‘loyal’ fans of the Stretford End by regularly taking money from their accounts for Carling Cup matches against Coventry for example and left these fans no choice simply to guarantee their season ticket. It’s NOT Ahmed’s problem.
FC UNITED.
Peejay. Just reading that question to Ahmed above as well, I can understand where you’re coming from as a local fan but United have changed, football has changed completely since United first won the Prem, clubs have changed, wages have changed, transfer fees have changed.
When I mentioned FC United, do you take an interest in them? I’m sure most United fans would rather see United than FC united at the end of the day but the fact is that the game is changing.
Peejay how old are you? I support Arsenal and you know why? Everybody around me was a Man U fan, but the first game I saw on TV(in India) was an Arsenal game and I forgot who it was against, but I’ll never forget Dennis Bergkamp that day. From then on its been all Arsenal. I play with my friends(though not as regularly as I was doing two years back when I was in College), I dont play any of those stupid xbox or ps3 or computer games(nothing against those who do). And I do live in India and I dont want the EPL games moving out of England. Having said that, I do believe that we are civilised humans and it is high time we learnt not to abuse others on the basis of their homeland/colour/creed etc etc. If you need proof that non-englishman are passionate about football, just read some of the articles here. But when you’re posting something use some commonsense and post a piede thats worth reading. Peace………….
The glaringly stupid thing about this proposal is that it unbalances the league. One year, a team will get relegated by 2 points, and would’ve played a strong club twice because of this international round. That team will scream blue murder, because a couple million for an overseas game isn’t worth the horror of relegation.
The only good I see from it is that it negates English managers whinging about releasing foreign players for home internationals. I would love to see David Moyes whinge about Cahill playing a WC qualifyer for us, only to front up in Sydney a week later for an Everton match.
I like the idea of English league matches staying in England. International round shrieks of tokenism. I want to watch the Arse play, one day, but I’d prefer to save my pennies and watch them over in London with 60,000 fat, navel-gazing, obnoxious, drunk, racist, dumb, whinging Poms. It just wouldn’t feel right, otherwise. Take the match out of its native habitat, and it’s just a bunch of over-paid prima donnas jogging around for 90 minutes.
I’m Ipanema Bob.
I’ll have to take this in several bites.
Firstly, great idea and inevitable. This is the next step in the Premier League’s inexorable expansion as a global brand. Its quality and entertainment value will only sustain if the brand remains the best in the world.
There is plenty of competition from other leagues. Globalisation is everywhere now and there is no holding back the tide.
There are plenty of details still to be ironed out but as an exercise in keeping the EPL top of the global tree (with all the benefits that brings with it) its an imaginative and progressive initiative.
Let me take up some points made by Graham Fisher (no. 12 above.)
Graham Fisher writes:
“By short changing the fans I mean that loyal, dedicated and passionate followers of a team who travel all around the country spending time and considerable amounts of money on supporting their team will probably miss out on going to a game. If they don’t miss out, it will cost them a fortune.â€
Firstly Graham, you seem to make a case that ‘Away’ fans are more loyal, more deserving etc than others. Let’s take Utd as an example. Several million fans worldwide, many of whom are passionate about the team and never miss a broadcast of a game; don’t have any option in terms of seeing live games.
Equally, demand has hugely exceeded supply at Old Trafford for years. Thousands of fans who could and would go to games can’t get tickets on a regular basis.
Does this make these fans less loyal or in some way 2nd class? Rubbish!
And, by the way, the fans that go to every game, apart from being very lucky that they can, do so as part of their passionate interest in life and because it’s the best form of entertainment and excitement they know. You make it sound like it’s a penance.
Secondly:
Graham Fisher writes:
“I fear that the Premier League constantly fail to recognise that without the fans, there is no game and no money. This will be good for the clubs in terms of finances, and good for the people who will get to see live Premier League football for the first time.”
Would you like to reconcile these two sentences? It is exactly because the PL understands the need for fans and that without the fans there is no money that they are proposing this initiative. Expand the global brand = more fans = more TV revenues = more money for the clubs and the PL.
You contradict yourself.
peejay – were you at the Stretford End during the 70s (in other words, how old are you?)?
To the people who are trying to argue for some sort of a hierarchy of fans…….what gives you this right?
Arguments that you are a better, more loyal or passionate fan because you live down the road from the ground or live in the same city or the same country (what the hell is the benchmark anyway!!) is no measure of your passion or commitment to your club.
No fan can claim greater ‘ownership’ of their club because of these factors and no one has the right to decide whether someone can or can’t be a fan of any particular club.
So I reject all arguments that raise any such premise to support them.
It’s 1 game a year (extra) so the impact on the playing side will be minimal, while the commercial impact will be huge.
I can remember people opposing shirt sponsorship, Pay per View TV, and the whole concept of the Premier League itself but then, with all progress, a lot of people have to be dragged kicking and screaming through every change.
Compare the product now with what was there in 1992 and there IS no comparison. It’s a hundered times better now. The PL is the best and richest league in the world. Complacency won’t keep it there. Imaginative development will……. which is exactly what this is!
I’d leave Peejay alone at this point. He’s clearly made a show of himself and will need some time to get over his embarassnment!
peejay,they say-empty vessels make a lot of noise…thanks for the banter
Thing is, he’s not alone in this – he represents a hard-core segment of United fans who are, to be honest, the foundation of United’s support at home or away.
We can easily sweep this aside as an individual case but it’s not – quite a lot of footy fans are like this.
Condell has a point, so does Ahmed. And the fact remains that if in case this proposal does go through, and Arsenal do come to India, I’ll be there for the match. But I sincerely hope this doesnt happen. Along with the players the grounds do add a lot more to the atmosphere. But we are all forgetting the fundamental point, where are the extra matches going to be accomodated? I dont know and I would certainly love to hear some proposals. Ahmed? Anybody?
iqnadirshah,
I think there are various options:
1.Reduce the Premiership by 1 or 2 teams. This removes 2 or 4 games while then adding 1 back.
2.Reduce the ridiculous number of meaningless friendly internationals and revamp the Group qualifying stages for Euro and World Cup so that there is a 2 tier system and fewer teams (games)at the group stages.
3.Pull Premiership teams out of the League Cup. Its become a bit of a joke anyway.
4.Extend the season by 1 week (leagues in Italy and Spain tend to finish much later anyway).
5.Start the Premier League 1 week earlier. These fixtures could be the first up and then would also not be seen as so crucial in potentially determining who wins the PL.
6.Have a winter break of 2 weeks when teams can fly out to warmer climates for a couple of fixtures.
Take your pick, but fitting in 1 extra game can easily be accommodated with a bit of imagination.
Take your pick, but fitting in 1 extra game can easily be accommodated with a bit of imagination.
Word.
Aren’t you guys forgetting that a 39 round season is unbalanced? That’s the ONLY concern, in my mind. We have an unbalanced league in Australia (each side plays each other three times), but that’s compensated by a final’s series to determine the winner at the end. In a round-robin table, it’s impossible to see this as anything other than unfair.
I agree with Bob – and it’s a point I tried to make above. The symmetry of the league system is what makes it fair, and the absurd idea that in one of these games held abroad none of the top 5 should play each other (and yet the bottom 5 still can) is clearly creating a dangerous hierarchy of teams.
I have an idea – why don’t we just get it over with and create the sodding European super-league. It seems that it will inevitably happen. That way, we can all go watch the Championship, which is the best league in the country anyway
[Ahmed]
I started supporting United when Liverpool were unstoppable.
“all of whom support Manchester United, or Chelsea, or Arsenal, depending on who was champion when they started watching…”
I take offense…
* I think it’s a good idea, but not for January. What about perhaps the last or 2nd last game of the season. Even better, why not look at making the Carling Cup global (teams lost their respect for the club already, so it might help restoring the cup pride)
* Why are people against ‘global’ games anyway, it happens already week-in and week-out with the Eufa and CL cups???
* There was once an article on Soccerlens about the “true” fans, where the main argument was that “true” fans go to watch games live. Maybe this can be a way of ‘bringing the moutain to Mohamed’.
[peejay]
Why is it ok for an Irishman to support United (to watch O Shea), but not for an African (to watch Fortune, Djemba-Djemba, Manucho) or what about the Brazilians (Da Silva’s, Anderson, Possenbom, Kleberson), or Chines (Dong), or Koreans (Park), or Trinidad (Yorke), or Argentinians (Tevez, etc), or Portugese (Ronaldo), or the French??? etc, etc, etc? Where do you draw the line?
Your childish, selfish “our league” concept ignores the fact that you need “their players” to make it exciting.
I think it’s time for you to grow up and realise that this “colonistic” perception of yours is so wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy outdated.
There are no Man Utd fans in Manchester, so why not send the team off to all corners of the world so their fan base can see them play.
Liverpool have the most popular website and football TV Channel (not including skysports) so i think its obvious we still have the most fans
Well that obviously went tits up – why does the preview show what it would look like with the html tags kept in and then strip them out when you submit?
Grrrr!
Here’s what it should have been (nearly)…
A good portion of this thread seems to have become about who is and is not a real fan of their club and whether foreign based fans should have an opportunity to see their team play a competitive league game close to where they live. I can see that argument from both sides really, and I don’t really want to re-hash it again. For me though, there are two main problems with this particular proposal:
1. It unbalances the symmetry of the league where each team plays each other team home & away. This is the way the English league has worked for 116 years. It’s fair and equitable in it’s sporting purity. After each team has played 38 games, the one with the most points can justifiably claim to be the best team in that league. That is one of the factors which, over the years, has made it a great competition – one with an attraction to sports fans around the world.
Suppose that over the other 38 games Man United collected 85 pts and Arsenal collected 84, both beat Fulham home and away in those 38 games, but both draw/lose to Spurs. Then imagine United are drawn to play Spurs in Miami and Arsenal to play Fulham in Cape Town. If the games go the same way as before, Arsenal leapfrog United.
Can Arsenal fans be proud of having won the league that year?
2. The SOLE motivation is to increase market share and make more money.
In #58, BD Conwell said “I can remember people opposing shirt sponsorship, Pay per View TV, and the whole concept of the Premier League itself but then, with all progress, a lot of people have to be dragged kicking and screaming through every change.â€
Well I would argue with any of those changes actually being “progressâ€.
Sure, they’ve all brought extra money into the English game, but they have also all favoured the more high-profile clubs for one reason or another.
The real watershed was the breakaway of the Premier League from the Football League, forced through by the then “Big 5″ (Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Spurs) and sanctioned by the FA (supposedly the guardian of All English football – international, professional, amateur & schools – due to petty political rivalry with the League). Prior to that, the TV money was more equitably shared between all clubs in the 92 club league as well as helping to fund “grassroots†football. Not only did the TV money get shared around, a percentage of gate money was paid to the away team, and a further percentage to the League for distribution down the football ‘pyramid’.
This is the structure which allowed English teams to dominate European competitions in the 70’s and early 80’s when the likes of Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa won European Cups, and the likes of Derby County won the league.
The league structure built competitiveness into the English game and allowed well-managed, well-coached teams to become successful. For all the progress since then, only 4 teams have ever won the Premier League, and only 4 teams have a chance of winning it in the foreseeable future.
So BD, yes, some of us did oppose the formation of the Premier League, some of us did argue that it would be bad for the game as a whole.
And some of us think that this proposal is another step in the same direction which will lead to still further concentration of riches at the top clubs and still further undermining of the league as a competition. Do you think that would be progress?
Finally, I’ve already heard ’suits’ from the EPL and some clubs claim that part of the motivation for this proposal is to ‘grow the game’ and give fans in other parts of the world ‘access’ to live Premier League games. Expect this to be the party line as the marketing campaign for this move goes forward – “We’ve got so many fans worldwide, we just want to give a little something backâ€, etc.
Do you really think they really care about ‘the game’? Do they care about kids in Asia or Africa developing their skills and enjoying the game? Do they care about the existing teams in the places this travelling show will visit? Do they really care at all about ‘the fans’?
Or do they just want to take more money off you?
Ahmed Bilal. chelsea have more foreign fans than liverpool???
r u mental. the only people who do that r creeps who support winning teams only( like most, not all i admit, manchester utd fans).
get ur facts right. i’m mauritian n half the populace here r lfc(the other half manu). chelsea n even arsenal get little support even though we’re africans….
u’ll never walk alone………..
hello. well i really wouldnt want the prospect of another Muncih disaster. I mean we can’t afford it now. I’m a manchester united fan but i speak for everyone here. Its true: we dont wanna risk it. BUT: if they come to pakistan, then it’s all good. i mean, I would die if manchester united played in pakistan. BEing a pakistani thats the best thing that can happen to a manchester united fan.
The radical option is for the PL to buy one club and designate it as the “overseas” club. That club will play all its games overseas. Logistics can be worked around. The “overseas” club can play its games sequentially, (e.g one month playing in Asia, one month in England, one month in USA) to minimize traveling for them. The “domestic” clubs have have their fixtures rigged to arrange a 9-day turnaround. You’d probably have to scrap the Carling Cup for it to happen, though. The only real problem is that the “overseas” club would have NO real fanbase, NO home advantage, have problems retaining players, and would need special protection against relegation. And, there’s the special nightmare if they qualify for Europe.
Still, it’s a workable solution.
Bob – I think that the idea of an “overseas” club is unworkable, for all of the reasons you kindly listed yourself. How can games be claimed as competitive when the club in question cannot feasibly qualify for Europe and cannot be relegated? It’d quickly become a joke.
English Premier League. I think the clue is in the title. It’s English not World. This is the beginning of the end of OUR beloved game.
I’ll back Ahmed here though I didnt really read what he said
Nowadays most of ‘em sheep are Chelski supporters, for some strange reason. Abramovich seems to have bought (with repayments) half of Asia too. Arsenal play the beautiful game at it’s best while Man Utd just grind it out without the need to pass to each other 420 times. Liverpool..give ‘em a year or two and we’ll be going ‘Liverpool who?’ ..Must be a L thing like:- Leeds?!
& please just settle all this crap and have the 39th games in Aus (technically:- Oceania). Asia doesnt wan’t any of it, nor the States. Stuff you lot then! AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
I’m all for it. Wouldnt mind checkin out Old Trafford sometime in the future though
Now I know there are MANY (many many) reasons to be against it, and I completely understand why anyone would want to go against it – but just for fun sake I’m going FOR
well..just for the sake of watching Any prem league team battle it out in Down Under