Speaking up for the Premier League

It would be hard to better Martin Samuel's polemic against the Premier League's new move to play one league game a year abroad.

It had wit, trenchant argument and all the verve one expects from the best writer in the football world.

To which I nervously add - I'm not sure that he is right, though.

I can't do justice to Martin in a few lines, you have to read it. But he makes three arguments I don't share.

First, he talks of the:

Global lolly that would soon be flowing through the game, to reappear as a pool of vomit at the end of a night of vomit with Ashley Cole or a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Roadster that the twentysomething owner is banned from driving.

It is true that the recipients of footballers wages do not generally spend it on books and Randy Newman records as would Martin or I. It is also true that higher wages attract greater footballing talent. The more our clubs earn, the more they can pay, the better will be the standard of player attracted to play here.

The drive to ensure that the English Pemier League remains a monumentally successful business is in the interests of all fans. And if the FA stops innovating it won't be long before standards decline.

Here's my second problem with Martin's argument.

He writes:

What type of league risks alienating people that will be there for it week in, week out, whose investment is total, to flutter its eyelashes at a part-time fan whose loyalty will never be tested over a wet weekend away to West Bromwich Albion?

Well, the sort of league that realises that it is already a global business. A few days back I posted this startling fact:

Every week, ten times as many Chinese people watch Premier League football as do British people.

These people deserve some attention too. They are fans too.

But it's not just that. If we allow another league to grab their attention, then the great footballers of the world, people like Carlos Tevez, Michael Ballack and Christiano Ronaldo will choose to play elsewhere. Ultimately the fans attending the wet away game against the Albion are gaining - week in and week out they get to see better players.

Finally we come to the most difficult issue - the fact that an extra game will be added to the season, adding in an unpredictable element of luck, undermining the purity of the league.

This is how Martin puts it:

He [Richard Scudamore of the FA] said the international draw that will ultimately pair teams up – first versus eleventh, and so on down the league, is an early suggestion – is only a twist of fate, such as getting a home tie in the FA Cup.

He misses the point, which is that any cup has a random factor, which is why the league is regarded as the true competition of worth.

Well, decent people can disagree about whether the extra element of luck is acceptable or not. The Fink Tank's Dr Ian Graham dislikes this scheme for some of the same reasons that Martin does. But at the same time, it is important to understand that the league is not a pure competition now.

If we wanted a league that was a pure test of skill, we would let games go on longer and stretch the league season into a number of years. A single season is not a big enough sample of games to be sure that the winning team is truly the best.

As time passes the element of luck reduces.

Why don't we do this? Becuase we know there is a trade off between the league's commercial position - upon which longer games and a multi-year league season might have a detrimental impact - and its purity.

And so it is with this proposal.

Comments

[adam]

I think you've missed the point. British fans pay to attend games in Britain so they can see world class stars in the flesh. How is watching Ronaldo playing for Man U in China any different from watching Ronaldinho playing for Barcelona in Spain.

British football fans will gain nothing from this extra round of matches, and the extra round will distort the competition far more than any statistical anomaly.

[Michael Wood]

Finally, someone writing about this with a modicum of sense!

The clubs have fans around the world. No-one doubts that their local fans are the backbone of the club but these fans will continue to get the lion's share of access to the club. The foreign fans - currently subsidising the clubs (and hence the experience of the local fans) - are getting little reward.

This goes someway to ensuring that these fans (and they are fans) get a chance to see their team.

The reaction we have seen so far has been a bizarre mixture of snobbery (only a local can be a real fan) and ignorance (the lack of appreciation of the cashflows coming to the clubs from abroad)

[Kevin, windsor]

Far Eastern fans are mainly interested in English football for the betting as they perceive it as not being corrupted cf. Germany, Italy and Spain. Not sure there is any real deep interest in football based on my experience in the Far East

[John Charlesworth]

Speaking up for the FA!!!

Once you have a situation where Players come from overseas, the owner come from overseas and the distributing media are globally based then this is bound to happen.

It is a global business with amazing rewards for the successful. Those wanting a purely English or UK system, based on Towns and Cities should set rules that enforce it. But the quality will not be as good but perhaps the spectator interest will be higher.

[arthur marson]

Another scheme dessigned to placate the GREBAFACAS of the Premiership.
Is this not an opportunity to reorganise world football, so that
money is spread more equitably throughout the various national associations, instead of going to just 3 or 4 clubs in each country.

[Ted B]

The more damaging plan mentioned yesterday is to increase the number of subs to 7 from 5. Who exactly does that benefit? Thats right the big four!

Even if an extra random game is played the big four will most likely finish in the top four, but the subs ruling further cements their dominance.

[Stephen]

My worry is that this is the thin end of wedge which will see the development of a fully-fledged US style franchise system. Why would a foreign owner keep a middling sized team in England if he can get 100,000 gates every week in Beijing? Follow the money...

[Adi]

You don't convice me Dan that this is a win win for all those of us who put bums on seats and pay the wages of those who play before us every week, and I'm am still surprised that no one has mentioned the environmental impact of all these extra plane loads of players with support staff jetting around the world, isn't everybody supposed to be cutting back on air travel to help save the planet?

[Adi]

Dan wrote:
'A few days back I posted this startling fact:

Every week, ten times as many Chinese people watch Premier League football as do British people.

These people deserve some attention too. They are fans too.'

Well Dan, one could say the same about the Aussie soap Neighbours, 3 or 4 times as many fans of the programme watch it in the UK as in Australia, but that doesn't mean the whole cast needs to come over and shoot an eposide in London every year, just because the UK has fans too.

Do you know for certian that it's UK football on its own merit that attacts the viewing audience? You make no mention of the viewing slot, or time it's shown, or what types of programmes it is up against? how did the researchers come up with this data, how was it collated? Factors that have to be a major influence in this type of media analysis's credability.

Your contention that this should be the basis for English teams to go and play in China is weakened by you lack of supporting data on the Chinese's TV viewers actual engagement with watching English football in relation to what else is being offered to them/or not at the time of transmission.

The continuing success of the weekly cultrual ritual of English football is based on many factors, one of which is that it the game is played in local grounds around the country. To supplant this to a ground on the other side of the planet in order to make a quick buck or two out of the English games popularity is to miss the point.

The basis of the English game's uniqueness has emerged over time with a localised fan base attending football grounds that they call 'home' and the riveraly between teams that come and play them. This can't be transplanted as easily as the various teams that this country's football fans each support.

You can't bottle a English football grounds atmosphere on match day. Its home grown and unique to this country.

But this is exactly what I think the FA believe that they can do by taking players out of their respective grounds and away from their home fan base and transplanting them to grounds overseas.

I think as many others football fans do, that they
are wrong to try and set this up.

[Angus C]

There are definitely pros as well as cons to this proposal and it's good to see some assessment of the positives but I still don't believe it should happen. Your point about the season not being long enough in the first place to determine deserved winners is an interesting one, but there is still an inherent fairness about playing every team home and away. Although there is an interesting comparison with the Australian Football League (not soccer's A-League), whereby there are 16 teams but just 22 rounds played in the season, yet to date I don't think the question of fairness about that system has been raised in the Australian Football community. But I digress. Another issue is the question of distance travelled. For instance if Arsenal were to play in Dublin and Manchester United to play in Beijing there would be a considerable disadvantage there.

I also strongly agree with your point that foreign fans are fans too. The notion that they aren't or can't be is absurd and the worrying trend of English football writers saying this is worrying and borderline xenophobic. As a foreign fan myself I completely object to the notion that we can't have a similar obsession as our British counterparts (and if I could make the wet away trips to West Bromwich Albion, I gladly would). I mean, what if you have a fully obsessed fan in Australia who watches every game their team plays on cable tv or via streams on the internet and reads club news obsessively, and is even a member of the club despite living thousands of miles away, and you compared that with, for instance, a fan who lives in Leeds who is mainly a rugby fan but is partial to football and occasionally visits Elland Road, maybe 4 or 5 times a season. Who is a 'real' fan here, or who is 'the' real fan here. There is no answer, they're both fans and to try and discredit one or both is completely missing the point.

Generally though I'd have to say that foreign fans like myself, if they want to see their team, should have to save up and travel to England (a special experience in itself) rather than have them come here. I'd be especially upset if it put my team at a competitive disadvantage, and that is my main complaint with the proposal.

[Dave]

The writer is clearly an imbecile, his argument that the league would need to be extended for years to ensure the purity of the game is simply nonsense. Idiot. No to game 39!

[Vuk]

"If we wanted a league that was a pure test of skill, we would let games go on longer and stretch the league season into a number of years. A single season is not a big enough sample of games to be sure that the winning team is truly the best."

This argument is just as poor as Martin's.

If you are to defend "The 39th Game", do it right, not with this nonsensical argument.

[p-lam]

Daniel --

First off, I think coming to US for games is a bad idea. We have our own trash league that is trying to develop and they deserve a shot.

I am an Arsenal supporter in the US, and understand the connection I have with the club is not the same as one with generations of both agony and enjoyment.

But I do think the somewhat snobbish attitude some have towards foreign supporters is wrong.

I watch all the games, mostly in Boston or Ft. Lauderdale at pubs, and can say the British in attendance have all been nothing but great.

That said, I wish some commenting online would appreciate that I too think you have the best game in the world and am every right as entitled to support AFC.

I have not been to the new Emirates, but for some to say I don't belong because I was not born in North London seem wrong to me.

I know many Brits that support the NE Patriots and I look forward the hearing your thoughts on the NFL, just let me also have my opinion that AFC should play a 4-4-1-1 without ridicule.

P-Lam - Boston, MA

[paul]

Why is the epl the richest league in the world? Because of the insane amount of money it is paid for their games to be broadcast around the world. Places like Asia and my Australia get good viewership at terrible hours and make it possible for the epl to be so successful. They don't pay you so much money for nothing, do they? I don't want it to effect the league, I don't mind if it's just a friendly, it would definitely be a worthwhile experience for the millions of fans that don't live in England.

[Andrew Emmett]

I do not get this idea that the FA have and need to continue 'innovating.' Scudamore uses the word like football has changed drastically over the years through the FAs guidence which it hasn't. Conceptually, the league itself stripped away of all its sponsership and tv deals is still X amount of teams playing each other twice over a period of one season. Where exactly has innovation come into that fundamental basis of what a football league is? More than 100 years has passed and no one 'innovated' anything. The FA are supposed to protect the game and they are now abusing that very duty that they are established to maintain.

[Mark]

The idea to take the Premier League abroad is a terrible one. Its the "English" Premier League!!! Plus, imagine your a club mid-table battling to get as high in the table as possible and your extra game is drawn against Manchester Utd, while the team just below you (on the same points for example), gets drawn against Derby. hmmm, i know who i would prefer playing...

How it is played currently gives every team an equal chance, playing their opposition the same number of times as everyone else. We dont need a spanner throwing in the works.

I think the saying below sums it up nicely.
"If it aint broken, dont try and fix it!"

[Adam]

Good post Daniel but have you seen The Independent's back page today? You wrote 'Every week, ten times as many Chinese people watch Premier League football as do British people'. Well, now that it's gone pay per view in China so few people watch the Premiership that it doesn't even make it on to any known ratings chart! The fact is surely there is no commitment to the English game in those parts, and if there was, to expose people in the Far East to the Prem's cynical money raking schemes so early in the day would surely kill off the market in a thrice.