Summer tours set to change the Premier League forever

The Premier League is colonizing the summer months to spread their gospel around the world. Every club is embarking on a summer tour in some far-flung outpost, some are even hopping across three different continents in pursuit of a burgeoning fanbase.

Jonny reports on the staggering Airmiles being accrued by the likes of Manchester United et al.

The 39th Game: the debate rages again

As Manchester United jet across the world satisfying a Premier League hunger beyond these shores, the spectre of a 39th Game must surely be back on the agenda.

United lead the way with a mind-numbing pre-season schedule of 22,000 airmiles with friendlies in South Africa, China, Norway, Sweden and Germany.

Premier League CEO Scudamore loves globalization

Champions Manchester City travel 16,000 miles to Austria and China. Everton are in Indonesia, while Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool and Villa are in the USA.

Chief Executive of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore is the most powerful proponent of globalising the Premier League with the 39th Game, but it's an idea in the traditions of Millwall. No one likes it, he don't care!

And when I canvas my fellow football-loving pals, I'm firmly in a minority of one in thinking this is a good idea.

But it's got to be a logical progression for the most widely watched league in the world.

Supporter groups in England are unsurprisingly against it.

After all, the NBA and NFL come to London, so is the Premier League missing a trick? In an inter connected world, isn't it an essential mechanic of a global game?

And if we don't do it, won't other European leagues biting at our heels do it first? Barcelona and Real Madrid are real Box Office and oh yeah, their national team is the greatest ever! The Premier League must stay ahead of the game and embrace an enlarged and growing fanbase - or somewhere else will grab them.

As the recession showed, travelling support for England was curtailed to Poland and the Ukraine, but for clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool, local support is literally only half the story.

And for teams like Queen's Park Rangers, boasting new signing Ji Sung Park, South Korea presents a massive new fanbase opportunity (although curiously his homeland isn't part of their mammoth 20,000 mile trek this time).

I really believe it's one-eyed for the Premier League not to consider the 39th Game and having created the global demand, our clubs need to respect and honour it with meaningful competition, not just friendlies.

We had an audio debate in the @sportsmediauk newsroom - and Marcus Stead wrote this passionate piece against it.

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Playing a 39th game overseas will NEVER work!

By MARCUS STEAD.

Alright, alright! I'm giving Marcus the platform he deserves for this well-argued piece. Personally, I like the 39th Game idea, although I confess it doesn't quite resonate with the same force it did pre-Credit Crunch. Here's Marcus!

Most football fans I speak to seem to agree with me that the Premier League has lost some of its appeal. Some of the sparkle that made it such an attractive product in the mid-90s seems to have gone.

I’ve noticed that most of my mates aren’t as eager to see every televised game as they once were. Over the last few years, they haven’t been quite so keen to make sure they’ve finished their Sunday dinner by the time the first of two live Premier League matches comes on. They don’t seem as bothered if their girlfriends want to take a trip to the DIY store on a Sunday afternoon either.

The evidence supports my case. Viewing figures for the FA Cup have dropped alarmingly this season, and I don’t think it’s because the rights have transferred from the BBC to ITV. Some people may prefer their football on one channel over another, but I don’t for one second think that’s a decisive factor as to whether or not they watch the game.

The truth is football needs a shot in the arm- something that’ll capture the public’s imagination the way the new and glamorous Premier League did in the 92/93 season.

At present, the entire bottom half of the table are worthy candidates for relegation. Many of these teams have their share of journeymen who enjoy a hefty pay packet and don’t feel any sense of loyalty or ambition to their clubs. Too often, their managers send them out to play negative, ugly football, and in these tough economic times, the fans are voting with their feet.

Football requires a revolution on the same scale as the formation of the Premier League, and failure to do so will see the steady decline in interest which is well underway escalate over the next few years.

Various ideas have been floating around as to how best to do this, most of which are quickly and rightly dismissed as completely impractical. However, one proposal that has repeatedly been suggested during the last 12 months or so is playing an extra round of matches of overseas. Their inspiration for this proposal often comes from the success the NFL have had in staging matches at Wembley. I’m sure its many advocates are well intentioned, but really, this idea needs to be put to bed now!

When we think of English football’s global appeal, we generally think of a few clubs. Certainly, Manchester United and Liverpool have strong fan bases in Asia and other parts of the world, but does it really span much beyond that? Is there really any demand for Premier League football in other parts of the world that does not involve the top four? Let’s look at this weekend’s fixtures for inspiration:

I can see demand for tickets for Man Utd v Liverpool being massive just about anywhere where football has any kind of fan base. But how well would Sunderland v Wigan go down in Bangkok? Or what about Bolton v Fulham in Johannesburg? Or perhaps West Ham v West Brom in Shanghai? Come on, it’s hard enough to persuade people from West Brom to go and watch them play!

The second problem this would create is that it would massively devalue the league system. If, as Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried, then a league system is the least worst way of establishing which football team is consistently the best. Every team plays every other team home and away over the course of a season, and the team with the most points at the end wins the league.

Of course, it’s not perfect and can never be completely fair. There will always be injury lay-offs which were no fault of the player or the club, suspensions that should never have been, and bad pitches caused by allowing rugby to be played on the ground (an increasing problem, and one I’ll have to get used to in a year’s time when Cardiff City move into their new stadium). However, until somebody thinks of a fairer way of deciding it, the league system will do.

Adding an extra round of fixtures will completely destroy the league as a concept. Imagine if, at the end of the season, your team finished second in the league with only a point separating you from the winners, yet you firmly believe that the champions had a much easier ride in their overseas fixture than your team did.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if court cases soon followed. The whole purpose of the league system would be lost. Make no mistake, such a proposal would be far more controversial than introducing the play-off system in both codes of rugby (I didn’t support that idea either).

Unless these two fundamental problems can be properly addressed, it’s time to kick this idea into touch once and for all.

Also on Soccermongery: Jonny's version of the same subject

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

MOTD 2 MOTD 0 or why the Premier League needs a rethink

I watched both Saturday and Sunday night's Match Of The Days and amid the one-too-many action replays and so-what analysis, it dawned on me: what a load of bloody rubbish most of the Premier League is becoming!
And it was so apparent this week with none of the big four playing till Sunday.

Adrian Chiles' MOTD2 led with two of the most enticing fixtures of the season, Chelsea against Arsenal and the Manchester derby, Robinho v. Ronaldo. Neither disappointed. The brilliant van Persie put Blues to the sword in minutes, and Ronnie's Red Card for handballing a corner only builds his myth as one of football's great entertainers!

But Gary Lineker's Saturday Obligation hobbled on for hours starring Villa's latest goalless failure to break the top three by beating a London suburb and Boro and Newcastle's local difficulty so dull I doubt it'll even make their local backpages. As for Sunderland, Roy Keane looked as lost Mark Thatcher on a Matzo Ramble, making Bolton look far better than they are.

The falling standard below about sixth place is rather like watching an ageing fat man who can't keep his expanding waistline inside the straining belt of his trousers. In other words, the lean quality is concentrated more and more to the top of the league with gravity taking care of the flabby bits after years of neglect.

Clubs lower down are employing journeymen and have-a-go managers making a virtue of their also-ran incompetence - purely because it's badged as Premier League.

No wonder attendances are down. It's not just the recession. The entertainment's not worth the entrance fee.

We can all jump round the room lauding marvellous Hull City's Premier League sortees - but their draw at Stoke was a catalogue of route one, long throws, gamesmanship and a stadium full of Championship fans who know the party can't last.

It's crap and seasoned-watchers aren't fooled.

Once upon a time when money and power wasn't concentrated to the perennial Champions League qualifiers, the riches of the new league filtered through so that even Middlesbrough got to sign Ravanelli and Juninho, Shearer fulfilled his boyhood dream of playing for Newcastle and Fulham signed van der Sar.

None of that happens these days. The Premier League's summit is a protectionist racket - and the only thing that stops it from being a cartel is that the standard is so universally ordinary at the wrong end that even newly promoted clubs can stay up. In other words, anyone of the bottom eight could be relegated.

The Premier League came about after years of in-fighting and attempts at reorganization, and it worked spectacularly.

But now, it's in need of re-invigoration if it's to continue its progress:

1) Distribution of Champions League revenue would do the trick.
2) Personally, I think the 39th game would be brilliant for interest both here and worldwide
3) a draft system where the best European teenagers don't always end up at The Emirates.

A pro-active rethink is needed - otherwise the Premier League's star may fall.