http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3389
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2703
by Karl Baxter
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3360
England’s soccer Premiership has gone off the deep end. Not content with the minor lunacy of allowing a large number of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=776 into the game and the major lunacy of reducing indigenous English players to a minority in their own league, it is now frothing at the mouth, rolling its eyes, and howling at the moon with its latest piece of globalist insanity – a proposal to start playing Premiership games overseas! This is all driven, of course, by the frenzied desire to rake in yet more TV millions, push ‘the brand’ in faraway countries, and enjoy 5-star trips to the fleshpots of the East.
The proposal – that Premiership teams should play an extra game in an exotic overseas location – is clearly the thin end of the wedge, as Michel Platini, the President of UEFA and one of the plan’s staunchest critics pointed out: “In England, you already have no English coach, no English players and maybe now you will have no clubs playing in England,” he told reporters.At present, each Premiership side plays one home and one away game against the other 19 teams in the league, giving a total of 38 games a season. The proposal calls for an extra 39th game to be played overseas, starting in season 2010-11. This would mean that teams would play one of their Premiership rivals three times in a season, while playing the others only twice. Such asymmetry creates an obvious flaw that could only be corrected by later expanding the roster of overseas games. This is apparently the long-term objective, and would amount to the final severing of the ‘English’ Premiership from its local English roots.
Despite downplaying the long term agenda, the Premiership’s proposal has attracted a firestorm of criticism, not only from UEFA and FIFA, the sport’s European and World governing bodies who have long viewed with horror the globalist tendencies of the English Premiership, but also from the British sports media and many players and managers.
Harry Redknapp, the manager of Portsmouth, mocked the proposal.
“Clubs could become like the Harlem Globetrotters,” he told reporters. “It will start with one game, and then next year or the year after, until eventually I can see us playing quite a few games in different parts of the world.”
Manchester United’s boss, Sir Alex Ferguson was scathing about the way in which the proposals were broached. “What disappoints me is (United chief executive) David Gill phoned me and said ‘keep this quiet, we are going to discuss it,’ and then it’s all over the papers this morning,” he complained. “They can’t keep their mouth shut down there. I think if they are going to do these things, they should have been enquiring and having discussions with managers and players before they come out with all this stuff and make an issue of it.”
Wigan’s manager, Steve Bruce, a former player under Sir Alex Ferguson also wondered about the proposal’s effect on his old boss: “It’s quite unbelievable, it gets everywhere, so I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Although there will be a few irate people. Can you imagine going to Fergie (Sir Alex Ferguson) and telling him, ‘by the way, you’re not playing at home this week, you are playing in Japan’? I’d like to see it!”
While a lot of criticism of the proposal is generated by the added difficulties it will cause players and managers, some complaints are caused by the fact that the Premiership will, in effect, be stepping on the toes of other football associations and damaging local leagues in the target countries.
The Japan Football Association, which already protects its indigenous game by limiting the number of foreign players in team squads (three foreign players, or up to five including amateurs), was unenthusiastic. “It sounds problematic,” vice president Junji Ogura said. “We are, in principle, opposed to having 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.”
But despite the waves of criticism and centers of opposition, there is no guarantee that the madcap scheme will be defeated. Premiership games are broadcast to over 600 million homes in 202 countries worldwide. An estimated 1 billion people watched a game between Arsenal and Manchester United in November 2007. The Premiership’s income from the sale of overseas TV rights has increased from £178 million ($336 million) in 2001 to £625 million ($1,250 million) for the current deal running until 2010. Broadcaster NowTV even paid £100 million for the rights to Hong Kong alone.
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