It's all very strange. Every pundit who know anything about anything (so we can ignore Mark Lawrensen) thinks it's a crap idea and that all the fans will hate it, and every football fan you speak to thinks it's a crap idea.
The FA seem to be pressing ahead despite probably anticipating almost unanimous objections from grass roots football fans, and I suppose that is to be expected. The boards of most premiership clubs probably see this purely as an opportunity to make some extra money from TV rights (they must all know that gate receipts would be pretty much nil for most matches abroad not involving Man Poo), and I suppose that is to be expected too.
What I find most unexpected is the silence of the premiership managers. You just know that they will all think this is a crap idea, that flying a team needlessly across the world to play a match in unaccostomed conditions with jet lag in front of no-one is a pointless waste of time, and that some teams might need the lift of their own fans more than others at times.
But none of them are saying so. It's just so obvious that they've all been told not to voice opinions by the FA through their boards.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
fergie was outraged - you've got to give him that.
but i see what you're saying, it's the most ridiculous situation that it would seem only about 2 people in the whole country are behind, and they're the 2 people that can get it through.
the trouble with starting it is, it's all about money, and then it'll be like 'oooh we want more money' so they play 2 games abroad a season, and it escalates from there. the stupidity of the premier league makes me not want norwich to have to be part of it, but at the same time ensures that i know we need to get there if we have any hopes of being competitive in the future.
those rotters.
Fergie is usually the first to moan about anything that adds to match congestion, and I suppose he's right to.
The arrogance of thinking that that many people abroad would want to go. I mean would anyone in this country really want to go to watch two lower Seria A sides slugging it out at Pride Park? It would end up (as a sporting spectacle) like one of those matches played behind closed doors because one of the teams is on the FA naughty step.
Martin O'neil has said its a stupid idea as well, supprisingly Roy Keane likes it.
Although we liked having the NFL here for a game so I can see the attraction, im more against having 39 games in a season - its just wrong!
Maybe they should look at playing an FA Cup game abroad or something?
that's the thing..football is a sport played to a reasonably high level (apart from the mls) the world over, they hardly need to see an exhibition of titus bramble's 'skills' to 'discover' the game.
i went to see the nfl match at wembley, which i thought would make me a bit of a hypocrite..but american football isn't a global sport and it has always considered itself a brand.
if you want to see premiership football in these other countries, it's not that hard either: turn on the telly. in africa and asia it's on pretty much back to back, they get far more televised premiership than we do.
also, on fighting talk the other week, they made a good point. the year italy won the world cup was the year after none of them played a competitive match all season (pretty much), as most of them were fixed. that was also the year we underperformed to perhaps our highest level, when gerrard, lampard, terry and ferdinand were absolutely shattered after playing to the latter stages of at least 2 cup competitions as well as the league.
redknapp came out against the idea but it's not been reported anywhere outside of pompey... it's almost as though the proprietors of certain newspapers have some sort of vested interest in the television deals involved *cough*...
it's not the playing games abroad per se that i'm against - it's the removal of the little parity that there is by way of a 38 game season where each team plays one another twice - once at home - once away.
Could you possibly be referring to Rupert "Dirty Digger" Murdoch?
couldn't possibly comment on which nasty australasian, evil media tyrant whose name rhymes with Boobert Burdoch I am talking about :)
Post a Comment