It wouldn't surprise me if someone else had already brought this subject up in the programme today, but then this page is called Paddock Patter so I'm pretty much contracted to complain about something. The topic I'm about to moan about being the quite remarkable proposal by the Premier League to extend the season to 39 games from 2010-11 by playing a round of matches overseas. So, where do I start? Well I think the thing that rankles with me most about this is the fact that these countries we are talking about playing our games in already have their own domestic football leagues, they do don't they - I'm not imagining this? Doesn't it just make your body tingle with joy to see us happily prepared to ruin the development of football in another nation just to make more money ourselves. "It allows us to grasp the globalisation nettle, which we cannot ignore. It is my duty not to ignore it. I would be criticised wholly if we let the league stray into the slow lane while others passed us in the fast lane. We have to do something. It is a strategic play." Those being the rather quaint words of Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore in a recent interview with BBC Radio Five Live's Sportsweek programme. Of course, how foolish of me not to realise that we need to grasp the globalisation nettle (make big fat wodges of cash at the expense of others). There really is seemingly no end to the greed of the Premier League in this day and age, one of the potential knock-on effects of this global bonanza, initially planned for a weekend in January, being the scrapping of FA Cup third round replays. The reason mooted for this so far being that midweeks fore and aft will be cleared of fixtures in order to facilitate promotional work before the matches and make the idea seem more appealing to our already horrendously over-paid top level players and managers. Well ain't that sweet, let's pour even more money into the Premier League while clubs at our level are going into administration seemingly every week and others lose money by the bucketload. One of the best excuses I've seen churned out for this charade is that the NFL brought a successful sell-out game to Wembley last season. Erm, did I miss a meeting or something, isn't the issue here that the Yanks are exporting a product that we don't have whereas we are proposing to export a product that other countries already have, thus impacting financially on football clubs in those countries. Time for my Richard Scudamore garbage-o-meter to go off the scale again. "This concept recognises the truly global appeal of the Barclays Premier League whilst understanding that the traditions of the English game have always underpinned our success." Of course it does Richard, of course it does, don't you just love some of the yarns people try to spin out these days in order to justify their own greed. So if we're understanding those traditions then Richard, what are we going to do about those fans that go to every home and away game season-in and season-out. The cost for supporters in the Premier League is already at completely unmanageable levels for your average fan in the street. Yet now we're going to see a situation where if they want to watch their team then they're going to have take four or five days off work and spend at least £500 I'd have thought doing it. Still, as long as Ashley Cole and his pals get their £60,000 a week then that's all that matters, as let's be honest, I'm sure that we'd all be in tears if they ended up down to their last five cars. And that's what it all boils down to really, if we're to continue to keep paying these players obscene amounts of money then the cash has to come from somewhere. This being the latest money making scheme dreamed up to make already bulging pockets, er, bulgier. Whether it becomes a reality remains to be seen, but if it does, and I for one think it will, then it signals yet another nail in the tradition of football in England. And all to make rich men even richer while the bottom two divisions of the Football League get the begging bowl out. |