Now Everyone Hates the Premier League

By: Daryl | February 15th, 2008

Blatter lucid Things are looking worse and worse for the Premier League’s plans for a moneyspinning international round. The plan already got the middle finger from Asia, Australia and America and now Sepp Blatter has had a rare moment of lucidity and spoken out against the idea.

This does not take into consideration the fans of the clubs and it gives the impression that they just want to go on tour to make some money. This does not take into consideration the fans of the clubs and it gives the impression that they [the clubs] just want to go on tour to make some money. This will never happen, at least as long as I am the president of Fifa … This is abuse. The rich Premier League is trying to get richer and wants to expand the importance of that league.

FIFA will have a good long look at the proposal when the executive comittee meets next month, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out they’ll be against it.

And if the Premier League try and push ahead without FIFA’s blessing, then England can wave goodbye to hosting a World Cup any time soon. Blatter is already saying the 39th game proposal “will not have a positive impact on the bid from England.” Which is very thinly veiled threat if ever I heard one.

So now we know the Premier League wants to expand, but that the rest of the world and the world’s governing body doesn’t want them to do it. So the question is: how unpopular are the Premier League prepared to make themselves? They may earn plenty of extra money from the overseas 39th game, but now it looks like the upside (money) could be outweighed by the downside (worldwide hatred.)

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Jim

Aaron, it will NEVER happen. The reason the Prem was established in the first place was because the biggest clubs refused to share their revenue with the rest. The FA have no control over TV deals - it's all down to the PL.

Anyway, the deep-seated problems in the English game stem from the fact that there is already too much money - leading to wage inflation and the distortion of the gap between the wealthiest and the rest. The Prem is now such a tedious - and expensive - experience that fans are increasingly downsizing to lower-league teams (or even starting their own) to try and recapture the real essence of the game. Who benefits from all this extra revenue? Not the fans - whose ticket prices rise extortionately; not the league clubs, who see the prospect of competing disappearing into the far distance; not even (very much) the clubs themselves - most of this extra revenue is swallowed up in wage inflation and increased agent percentages.

We need LESS football on TV, not more and we don't 'deliver the game to a wider audience' by standing all over their emergent leagues. If the Americans/Koreans/whoever want wall to wall football, let them watch their own teams. Even better, they could get up out of their sofas and go and watch teams in the flesh, rather than the vapid and unsatisfactory experience watching football on the telly is.

Blanket TV coverage of the English game is a disastrous idea. It gives even more power to the Prem, at the expense of the Football League; it continues to distort the gap between the loathsome Big Four and the rest; and it promotes the utterly false idea that what matters are TV subscribers rather than real fans. Hideous, hideous, hideous.
diana

The English FA has responded to the plan...over here - http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/ne...
Aaron

Jim, I'm not sure I follow you. If you're bemoaning the commercialization of sports, I'm with you although the fact that it has happened to every sport under the sun should make it less surprising.

The FA would need to devise a revenue-sharing system for this expanded coverage to benefit all the clubs. There's a chance that this might effectively end the "club" system as we know it and make it more closely resemble the American monopoly leagues, but the fact of the matter is that there is revenue out there that the Premier League is missing out out on, and that won't be sitting well in any club boardroom. Particularly those of the larger, more powerful clubs.

I think there can be a way to keep the club system while also tapping in to the worldwide revenue streams and delivering the game to the wider audience, but I'm not sure Scudamore has the brains to create such an entity.
Jim

Yeh, thats what the game so desperately needs, *more* overseas TV revenue. Play all games behind closed doors, CGI in the fans, job done.

Lord have mercy.
brian

I get FSC and setanta, but id love to get it in HD too, id gladly pay.
Aaron

Great point, Dave('s Football Blog). That they would consider such poisonous means of increasing revenues without exploring more politically benign (and potentially even more lucrative) options such as the expansion of television coverage/exposure seems pretty idiotic. Particularly since the worldwide market of people with television sets is at least 100-fold larger than the number of people who would be attending the 39th games.

This idea was half-baked from the start and should never have been allowed to see the light of day...
Dave's Football Blog

It's dead, Jim. There's no way the FA will allow Scudamore to interfere with their World Cup bid. This will get squashed well before the end of the season.

Here's a better idea for the Premier League -- a worldwide PPV package that serves up every game in HD, just like NFL Sunday Ticket. If they really want the American dollar, that's the way to go. I'm already paying an extra $28/month or so for a limited selection of Premier League matches *not* in HD, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.