The big debate February 08 2008
The Premier League's pioneering proposal to play fixtures across the globe has been met with derision. Richard Ferraris suggests that the opposition to the new plan is somewhat misplaced.
Since the genesis of the Premier League in 1992 the English game has evolved to become the foremost sports product in Europe and in the world. It is important to clarify that club football is a commodity. This is a fact that cannot be denied.
As such the Premier League is competing with a number of other sporting codes and leagues for primacy and revenue. This too, is a fact that cannot be denied.
In this Darwinian cauldron it is imperative that the Premier League taps any competitive advantage at its disposal. When it comes to the so-called globalisation of football, the opportunity cost is massive.
The Americans have already started to make headway in the European market and for the Premier League to do the same across the world is simply a logical evolution of this phenomenon.
The driving force behind the Premier League's quality has been the burgeoning bank balances of clubs thanks to more TV money. The new proposal is the next step.
The alternative is to grow our beards and move into caves and moan about any match played outside of the UK.
A major issue to grapple with is the basic question of who owns football? It so prevailed that in the late 19th and 20th century that football was the sovereign property of the working class. But this is no longer the case.
Very few clubs can nowadays claim to be 'owned by the fans', although Ebbsfleet and Barcelona are the exceptions to this rule.
Furthermore, the nature of 'fanhood' has evolved at a drastic pace since the proliferation of the mass media made English football accessible to people in Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Since the Premier League was at the vanguard of the technological revolution the gospel of English football has been spread to the four corners of the world.
As Asia continues to rise, the East has become football's most lucrative market and playing football on that continent is the least clubs can do considering the huge revenue generated from the region. Ditto Africa, which has the potential to be a rather large market.
A quick glance at Liverpool's recent annual reports highlights what is at stake. In 2005 Liverpool's commercial ventures outside of the UK raked in £654 000, but in 2006 that figure hopped up to £4,3 million.
This represents over 10% of the club's commercial revenue and as a token of gratitude the least the Reds could do is play one match per season on foreign turf so as to rectify the prevailing asymmetry.
Richard Scudamore was on target when he explained: "This proposal, as currently drafted, doesn't take anything away from the league. It is adding to it."
Concern has been raised over the players having to play an extra game in a season which already demands upwards of 50 matches depending on cup runs.
Quite frankly one extra match will hardly make an impact. And ultimately, the players would be quite keen to play in foreign lands especially if there is something in it for them. Anything to pay off that Bentley, hey.
Should the players have been consulted on this matter? The answer to that is probably, but one can hardly envisage a Fulham midfielder single handedly stopping complex historical forces by voting 'nay' to playing in New York.
The ennui around the Premier League as it is currently constituted is plain to see. Another thing to remember is that a host of clubs fail to fill their home stadiums. It therefore seems absurd for these 'supporters' to lament the new plan especially when packed houses are likely to be had elsewhere.
It will be a spectacle to remember to see the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal playing in the world's great cities.
Anyway, the idea of teams playing outside their own locales is not completely new. Just last year Nigeria took on Ghana in an international friendly in Brentford, London.
Richard Ferraris
My colleague makes some salient points regarding the monetary and commercial advantages of playing Premier League games outside England but he ignores a few very important flaws in the proposed plan.
According to the decision taken by the chairmen of the twenty Premier League clubs, the sides will be seeded and drawn at random. This would work well if there was no difference in the quality of Premier League clubs. Sadly this is not the case.
We have to remember that very few of these chairmen are actual football men. They see only the bottom line and a chance to make a quick buck.
But let's create an example. Two sides are tied in the last relegation spot. If we look at the league table now there's a single point separating Birmingham and Reading. So, we go to the draw for the 'extra' game. Reading draw Fulham with the game to be played in Baghdad. Birmingham have the misfortune of drawing Arsenal. So, while Reading have a real chance of getting all three points, the 'luck of the draw' consigns Birmingham to relegation and a massive loss of revenue.
As the top five clubs can't be drawn against each other this system looks set to further entrench the inequalities already present in the Premier League.
Another point not really thought about is this: A game between Manchester United and anyone is set to lure a huge crowd, regardless of where it happens to take place.
Teams like Bolton and Blackburn can't even fill a stadium in their home towns. Playing in an empty arena in some American industrial sector is not exactly an entertaining prospect.
We should also not forget that, once we cut teams loose from geographical specificity, the onus that currently rests on them to at least look like they're doing something for the communities around them will disappear. A multinational club will set up it's headquarters in some tax-haven, robbing the UK economy of billions.
Then, finally, there is the chance that, by divorcing clubs from their historical fanbase, we will devalue the game to the point where no one cares anymore.
This proposal is the first step towards franchising teams and eventually going the way of American sports where teams follow the money regardless of moral or historical imperatives.
We all know that American sport is unviewable to any human with a triple digit IQ. Do we want football to go the same way.
So, in conclusion, this is only a good idea if you're a greedhead with the morals of a sewer rat and the longterm vision of a suicide bomber.
Justin Zehmke