Rudolph Brown- Peter Reid (left), president of the St Catherine Football Association and Evette Williams (right) general manager of the St Catherine Cooperative Credit Union, presents Naggo Head Football team with the St Catherine Cooperative...LONDON (AP)
Think again! The English Premier League's plan to play games across the world was condemned by local fans and the media on Friday, while FIFA gave it a lukewarm response.The so-called globalisation of the Premier League may not be such a good idea after all, despite the international flavour of domestic competitions and teams and the influx of sports from overseas.
England's national team has a squad of Italian coaches under Fabio Capello and not a single Englishman has won a major domestic title since 1995. The NFL and NHL played regular-season games in London a few months ago.
The Premier League club owners announced on Thursday that they might each play an extra league game starting in the 2010-11 season, with matches held in five different cities around the world.
So, is it inevitable that English clubs will be competing for points in the United States, Japan, China, Australia, South Africa or Dubai?
Maybe not
While the 20 owners were unanimous in saying the plan was a great idea to make the league a truly worldwide brand, the fans are united against it. Most of the managers want to wait before making a decision.
"My instinctive reaction is not to be against innovation,'' Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said yesterday. ''This league is at the moment acknowledged as the best in the world but only 10 per cent of people who love the clubs have access to the games and 90 per cent don't.
"But it can only be valid if you respect certain criteria. The first is to respect the competitive side of our game. The second is to respect the quality of the organisation you have inside the game and the fairness of the game.''
Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp said there was the danger of English clubs playing regularly around the world instead of in front of their own fans.
"I said months ago I could see us playing abroad, I could see them all taking their teams, getting more and more foreign owners,'' he said. "We will probably end up playing one game a year in England and the rest around the world. It would be like the Harlem Globetrotters (touring basketball team)."
analyse plan
FIFA, the world governing body which is campaigning to stop the big clubs from effectively taking over the game, said it would analyse the plan.
A day after Premier League chief executive Peter Scudamore came up with the idea, FIFA said it expected the English governing body, the Football Association, to send it something official.
"We understand the Premier League's desire to raise interest in English football around the world,'' FIFA said in a statement. ''We look forward to discussing the detail with the League and looking carefully at the implications, to ensure that the proposal fits well alongside the existing fixture list, including our domestic cup and league competitions and our national team games.
"We know that the Premier League is equally conscious of these issues.''
While Japanese fans may welcome seeing Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea play competitive games, their soccer federation may raise an objection.
"It sounds problematic,'' said JFA vice president Junji Ogura. ''We are, in principle, opposed to having their Premier League games in Japan as we have to protect our league and clubs. In Japan, we don't allow anyone to play a match that involves only foreign clubs and no Japanese clubs.''
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