Thetownend.com

Wouldn't mind if it meant we could watch Town in Europe!

The English Premier League is considering playing some matches overseas, BBC Sport has learned.
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 venues around the world, with cities bidding for the right to stage them.

It is understood the additional fixtures could be determined by a draw but that the top-five teams could be seeded to avoid playing each other.

It is unlikely that any decision will be taken before the Premier League's annual summer meeting in June.

Should the proposal get the go-ahead, cities in Asia, Middle East and North America are likely to show a strong interest in hosting the extra games.

   
This is a chance for the Premier league to showcase their product around the world

BBC sports editor Mihir Bose

BBC Sport believes there would be five venues, with two games - on a Saturday and Sunday - taking place at each one.

BBC sports editor Mihir Bose says the Premier League's decision to explore such a move is a "logical" one.

"The growth of the Premier League has been impressive in the last 15 years thanks to the sale of television rights in this country," he said.

"But 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.

   
606: DEBATE
Surely this is a joke, am checking my calendar now to see if its April 1st already!!

atters1

Manchester United are regular visitors to Asia, Middle East and America while other clubs are beginning to follow their lead.

"This is a chance for the Premier league to showcase their product around the world," added Bose.

"Some fans may feel aggrieved, but their concerns will be outweighed by the advantages.

"Clubs will see this as a chance to make more money so they can invest in new facilities and better players."

Money grabbing

nothing surprises me anymore.  In some respects the impoverished lower leagues do have an advantage in that occasionally the games are actually about seeing who is the best team, rather than just an opportunity to flog more tat.

Incidentally I just read "Premiership" by Chris Horrie about how the premiership was started and the general air of dodginess surrounding the whole thing - it was written in 2002 so doesn't go as far as ITV digital going under, but 'tis still a good read.

You're nowt but a whore of a league with a global army of semi aroused voyeurs.  When you’re cheeks have gone loose and the perverts catch their kicks from the next new Thai ping pong show in Town all of you’re bread and butter regulars will have long since found solace in the warm comforting bosom of a reassuringly familiar, cheaper and altogether friendlier lower league respectable woman.

Come to Daddy

I said this would happen the minute the yanks held the shit rugby at wembley

It's all a bit grim really.

I'd love to see the League demand a good stake of the Premiership TV rights or threaten to cut the bastards loose.

 Offer those top sides the opportunity to re-join the league, re-structure the pyramid to accommodate the distortion and then leave the rest out to rot.  When you see what we’ve been through recently and Bournemouth are experiencing now this sort of show pony cash cow stunt is a bit of a sickener.

football eventually will kill itself off.its getting more ridiculous by the day

What Dazza said. Both times

Good idea premier league

On the anniversery of the Munich air crash, lets vote to shove more footballers onto planes.
Roll on Munich 2  :-))(

I simply dont understand it.

It makes sense playing Amercian Football abroad, they are trying to expand the sports global popularity

Football is the most popular sport in the world already :shrug:

Well where do you think the first football game will be played, La Galaxy by any chance

I thought they complained about playing too much football? Surely this won't help the poor little lambs?

Although I don't like the idea personally, I think the Premier League are only trying to achieve their objectives.  

Didn't the Russian FA say that wanted to do this to "raise their profile" and either fifa or uefa told them they could do it, so I'm, sure the FAPL would be blocked from doing this also.

It is disgusting though they are just a cash cow and they should spread the wealth to the lower leagues - the wages that some of the larger teams pay one of their "star" players could help to clear debts of teams like Bournemouth, but of course they wouldn't even consider helping any team other than themselves.

What a massive kick in the teeth for the supporters.

They wont give a fuck tails it will still be on telly

If the 1st objective of the PL reads "make as much money as possible, with no consideration to how anyone else feels about it"

What is the world coming to indeed..........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7231231.stm

I'd do her.

Oh my fucking god! What is our country coming to. We're a fucing laughing stock. Red tape, bureaucracy and cotton wool is our monopoly.

:D  :soapy tit wank:

I'm glad to see the police getting to the core of the problem

Its apple-awling

Stop it you Cox.

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Excellent Work Mr Sussex.

That's litter-rally stupid.

Anyway, going back to the money grabbing PL...

It's stupid playing an extra game, as it'll be totally unfair. Just imagine Chelsea beating, say Man U, by a point, due to the fact they beat bottom side Derby in their extra game, whilst Man U could only draw against Man City.

Bolton v Wigan in Bangkok should draw a capacity crowd

I think you'll find the case will crumble, or the judge will turnover on appeel

Pack it in or we will send Granny Smith to sort you out, you must be rotten from the [b]core[/b]

Fucking crap idea.
Once again the Premier League loses touch with reality.

Let em fuck off and play every game abroad I say.I wont miss it

You could just imagine it -

Reading v Bolton - In Saudi Arabia.
What a load of pish.

You can imagine Fergie and Wenger moaning like fuck when fixture congestion/injuries hamper their gay boys. Which is quite funny really, but they will probably put out a reserve team in all domestic cup competitions to compensate.

Exactly, how can a team play every other team twice apart from one, who they have to play three times. You've looked at the top but imagine it at the bottom, where going down costs at the moment 60 million, but will be even more expensive when/if this comes in.

Just imagine, matchday 39, Sunderland and Birmingham are equal on points at the bottom, with Derby and Fulham already relegated. The draw for this money grabbing,greedy cuntish game takes place:

Man Utd - Birmingham to be played in Los Angeles
Sunderland - Fulham to be played in Dubai

Birmingham would take the Premier League to court, and would have a damn good case. These are huge businesses now. the clubs would agree to it for the cash but would soon change their tune when a situation like the above arises. Football would cease to be a fair competition.

On a positive note, I think we, along with alot of lower league clubs, would benefit from better crowds etc

i suspect you would find that there would no longer be anything as abhorent to a business as 'relegation'.

If the fans let this one happen then it really is the end of the Football League as a serious competition and the beginning of the circus.

Absolutely sick.  :chunder:

Fuck off you greedy wanker ruining cunts.

This is why we have to fight tooth and nail to keep our heritage, to try and get fans in positions of power. To keep football real. I love Fitton I really do, I know financially moving to a ground on the M4 would be a great financial decision. But is it always right just because its financially right?

I hope this will make English fans have a good long hard look at themselves. Look at the corporate lemmings they have become who dont care about history or community. To look at the souless plastic pieces of shit stadium up and down the country and ask is it all really worth it?

the more i hear and read about this issue,the more it sickens me.
its greed, pure greed.nothing more.
football should be about the history of the club,the rapport the fans have with it.
the exitement of visiting different grounds etc.etc.
taking it oversees is a fucking disgrace!

It's not really the Football League at fault.  They may have all of the backbone of a Christopher Reeves salad roll but it’s the circus that is the Premier League and the respective club clowns that run the show that are driving at this.

Ravey Davey (Gravey) Gold of Brum City is actually spouting off on the BBC how he’s in favour of such a move when in reality (as highlighted above)  his club are likely to lose the most from this sort of shenanigans.

part of me actually hopes it does some about, the big clubs just fuck right off to Saudi or wherever leaving the Championship downwards as the 'English league', watched by fans that want to see an actual football match in their home town by going through the turnstiles.  The super premiership can then just disappear up its own arse leaving behind nothing but a pile of sweatshop produced replica shirts.

It won't happen but it might be timw for the Football League to say fuck you to the Premier League and stop all movement up and down to it.  Invite some of the clubs back if they want it, but leave them alone to get on with their own branding exercises.  Do any of us aspire to watching our team play in the Worldwide Premier League involving clubs with a name in English?  fuck em, lets just get on with a revamped 3 division no nonsense football league that doesn;t rely soley on money.

What the fuck did I do?  :shrug:

Just heard Scudamore on 5 live tell fans the proposals could have been worse - they could have lost one of their regular home games.  What planet does that fucking idiot live on

I am laughing at how stupid this is! Fucking twats

I have never heard anything so bloody stupid.

Only the premier league could come up with such a crazy scheme. It is purely about money and sheer greed, nothing more

I agree.  :shock:

Slightly different tack - some while ago there was talk that the "top" teams in europe would break away and form a super league.  I was horrified at the time but now I wish they'd just fuck off and do it.  
I remember back to a time when Man U vs Bayern was a bloody event - because it was so rare.  Cue some marketing knob head - "I know, if we played the best in europe every week, we'll have years and years of these "special nights".  No you won't you stupid cunts, you'll devalue it simply because it will become ordinary :evil:  :evil:
Well fuck off and be ordinary and let the rest of us compete in the english league the way we always have done.  Rant over!

How to make the elitist premiership even more elitist - imagine being a west brom fan who goes week in, week out, you want your team to go up and do well, but not too well because you'd never fucking get to see them play unless you're minted and can afford to fly to a european country every other week.

Sounds like fucking Franchise - can't be arsed to support and develop their own football clubs - just want to buy into an existing establishment and move it. There are very few reasons why an overseas fan would support ManU and not their local team.

If they started doing this they would get to see football each Saturday and help their own side progress and develop. If the premiership started playing abroad it would have a negative effect on local teams who wouldn't attract the same crowds in comparison.

Spot on Axs. I grew up with 92 teams in the professional league and although I must hate at least a quarter of them, the local representation is still what I love the most about our football.  It matters to me that Grimsby survive, that Millwall is a cunt of a place to go to, that Gillingham hate our guts and that Bristol Rovers have a shite ground.  I am gutted that Bournemouth are in severe shit and have lost points - although delighted that those Leeds cunts lost theirs.  Sod 2 million turnovers per game and arrogant fucks on 120 grand a week.  If our football ever ends up with 16 franchises I'll never watch it again and my life will be vastly poorer for it

Can those of you old enough to remember the foundation of the Premier League clearly, and young enough not to be suffering from pre-senile dementia and forgotten, confirm something for me.

Wasn't the justification for the whole fucking thing something along the lines of.......

"We need a elite league to improve the quality of English football, to improve our players, to make the England side more competitive and our club sides better able to compete in Europe. That needs a smaller top division with elite clubs playing fewer games per season."

And now we've got a big fat rich league full of foreign players, playing more games than ever, flying off to play stupid exhibition games in fucking Dubai or somewhere whenever they have a free weekend and now proposing to play the occasional league game in fucking Melbourne.

It's enough to make you think the whole Premier League breakaway might actually have been simply about the money...

Who'd have thought.

Cunts.

The sole reason for the Premier League was Rupert Murdoch - FACT!

Money aside, the main issue for me is the stupid randomness of the extra game draw devaluing the 'fairness' of the competition. If a title is decided by less than 3 points it meaningless thanks to the extra 'random' game.

Just wondered, but I think I'd have less of a problem if they pitched it like NHL did when they came - make the 'international leg (y'all) part of the regular season. Play the 2  regular season games whilst there, i.e if Man U v Derby is the chosen fixture, Derby play Man U as 'home team' then a few days later as 'away team'.

Don't get me wrong, they'd still be money grabbing whores shitting on their own fans but at least the league competition would be 'level'.

Agree with that.

The plan is total bollocks and sounds like the sort of thing Sepp Blatter might come out with. What about these fans who haven't missed a game for 40 years? They pour their life and soul into the club and then can't go to a game because its being held in California/Dubai/Melbourne/Zanzibar

I'm so glad I never got sucked into supporting a money-grabbing club. The FL is where it's at!

Just to use your example, Batch, how many fans do you think Derby would have at Thailand's National Stadium and how many would Man United get? It would effectively be two 'home' games for Man United.

Even the way they're talking about it now, the smaller clubs are going to lose out. 60,000 people might turn up, but they'll be turning up to see Derby get hammered by their 'heroes'. The only Derby fans there will be the 50 or so loyal/daft enough to fly out there from Derby. So The Rams will pick up a few million quid for taking part and United will hoover up a merchandising fortune, thus making the league even less balanced than it is now.

But then if Derby are stupid enough to vote for it...

It's not perfect, but better than a random extra game.  And as you say, if the clubs vote for it, tough shit.

BTW: I'm not for it in any sense of the word. It's shouldn't be allowed unless it is a pre or post season tournament.

Many Thai's support Arsenal AND Man U AND Liverpool AND Chelsea, and probably know the players better than their own national team.

I reckon that filling the 50k ish stadium would not be a problem, and in the case of say Derby vs Man U then the stadium would be a sea of red.

I can't even think of a place out here that I could buy a Derby shirt if I wanted to.

It's shite.

Who gives a fuck if some tossers on Oz wanna see Man U v Liverpool? If you wanna see it, get on a fucking plane and come over here and watch it! If I wanna see some Aussie Rules football I'd want the experience of seeing it where it is supposed to be played with the proper fans, not  have it brought over here and played at fucking Wembley so I can watch it with a load of corporate spackers.

I thought the "fairness" of the Premiershit had long gone. Its got to be bad when the Press are orgasmic about the possibility of another club breaking into the top 4  but even then its not about how good Everton etc are its a case of how crap Liverpool are.  
The randomness, however, is more likely to affect the bottom of the Premiershit than the bottom so who cares eh.
Thank God I support Swindon.

It's all about merchandise and selling the brand. Short term loans/deals for that country's star player to be in the side to sell more.

Whatever next? Teams invited to be in their league and no relegation or promotion if you don't fit their business criteria? We'll soon be in the American Football mode where teams can be bought and moved to a whole new city at the drop of a hat.

Thats already happened!

It's nearly as bad as going to Ibiza for pre-season friendlies :wink:

The FSF have started a campaign :

http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/news0095no-to-game-39.html