The Premier League has already gone global - and here's why

Understand this then mate: I am an Englishman wanting to watch my English team playing all of its English premier league games in guess what? ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!

This article is total rubbish and completely misses the point. The reason supporters of English teams are so against this idea is because we support FOOTBALL CLUBS not BUSINESSES! We couldn't care less about global domination, we're not Stalin or Hitler or any other dictator! This move is being purely fuelled by businessmen for the sake of businessmen, neither fans nor football come into the equation. And if fans from other parts of the world want to watch English matches then, fine, go turn on a TV set or go book a plane ticket. Why should we have to change OUR sport for your sake?! Go support your own teams for god's sake!

I can't believe you can be bothered to write this crap and that i have read it. i dont agree with you but i suspect you are correct as for winston churchill im not sure what team you support but the must be s*** if they havn't got any foregners (if ive spelled that wrong i dont care)

Hey I'm from Egypt and i can't afford a ticket to Emirates stadium( including plane ticket ,hotels, food, taxis, etc...) but I'd DIE to see Arsenal in Egypt or any other nearby country, so you can watch your whole 38 games in England, but can't we watch at least ONE GAME from the stadium?, you can go to the stadium whenever you want, but do you know how much it will cost us(time and money) to see just one match in the uk? so please english fans don't be selfish, can't you turn on the TV and watch the game ONE TIME PER SEASON?! and please don't be so self-centred (i'm talking about the ones who replied before me, no offense to the english fans)

I can see some of the arguments against the plans but I hate the one that some selfish a-holes will have to miss a whole ONE game a season at their own stadium in the name of someone else being able to watch it. As an Arsenal fan for 15 of the 18 years I've been alive I've never been able to afford to go to a game besides a few in the Carling Cup at Highbury when it was cheaper. As an English fan I'm already excluded from my team because it's way too expensive for me. If someone else in an even further away situation than me in relation to their chances of being able to see a game has a chance to see one then great for them. In the same way that if Arsenal played a game at my local ground where I could afford it I would think 'finally, I've deserved the chance to see my Arsenal forever.' One of the problems is selfish fans who can't comprehend the idea that they will miss a game. Do what most of us fans who already can't afford tickets do. Turn on your TV or radio and follow it that way. It might not be a

[quote]Hey I'm from Egypt and i can't afford a ticket to Emirates stadium( including plane ticket ,hotels, food, taxis, etc...) but I'd DIE to see Arsenal in Egypt or any other nearby country, so you can watch your whole 38 games in England, but can't we watch at least ONE GAME from the stadium?, you can go to the stadium whenever you want, but do you know how much it will cost us(time and money) to see just one match in the uk? so please english fans don't be selfish, can't you turn on the TV and watch the game ONE TIME PER SEASON?! and please don't be so self-centred (i'm talking about the ones who replied before me, no offense to the english fans) [/quote] It starts with one, then after that who knows! how about trying to develop your own league!

Anyone in any doubt as to why this idea should not go ahead go and visit the Football Supporters Federation website. They've laid out the case against the idea of overseas games far better than I could. By the way, it's not selfishness, it's just called life. To the Arsenal fan in Egypt how would you react if I said you were being selfish for not letting the Pyramids go on tour?! I can't afford a ticket to see them so what would be wrong in bringing them to England so that I could? They are OUR football teams, not yours. Just because you aren't lucky enough to be able to see the Premiership I don't see why our league should suffer.

The author completely misses the point. The outcry against game 39 has nothing to do with protectionists and reactionaries. It has everything to do with the preservation of integrity. And integrity will be the biggest casualty if game 39 is ever sanctioned. As things stand - as they have always stood - the league format is the fairest and truest of all footballing tests. All teams must play each other twice - once each at their respective stadiums. To introduce an arbitary 39th game would be to introduce the element of chance. It would shatter the symmetry and integrity of a league season. Whether a team is challenging for the title, fighting for a Champions' League or UEFA Cup spot or scrabbling desperately against the relegation trap door, all their efforts could eventually hinge on the mere drawing of a name from a hat - the impostor, chance, intruding into a competition hitherto decided only by merit. The Premiership would be devalued. It would be grotesquely disfigured by game 39. And let's hear no more

And let's hear no more of this nonsense about the market force inevitability of the Premiership spreading its wings abroad. Such brazen propaganda has not been seen or heard on this continent since Goebbels was doing his damnedest for the Third Reich. Scudamore wants to scare us all into believing that game 39 is an inevitable step in an increasingly global market. Of course he does. He has dollar signs spinning in his eyes and a cartoon cash till for a mouth. The truth, however, is that the Premiership is already a global, market leading product. It is going from strength to strength. And there is not the slightest danger that the Premiership's pre-eminent position will be threatened by not playing matches abroad. To claim otherwise is nothing less than outrageous dishonesty and scare-mongering by the slimey chief executive of the greedy and grasping money making machine that is the Premiership. The irony is that the one thing that could threaten the pre-eminence of the Premiership is, in fact, the very imp

The irony is that the one thing that could threaten the pre-eminence of the Premiership is, in fact, the very implementation of game 39 - especially if game 39 is only the thin end of the wedge. Currently, the Premiership is respected and followed worldwide precisely because of its integrity and inherent fairness. There is the perception (whether correct or not) that English football is less vulnerable to corruption and less plagued by cheating and diving. Attack the integrity at the core of the league structure and, instantly, the shadow of doubt will shroud the essential fairness of English football as a whole. Like a cancer, it will spread and fatally weaken the trust and goodwill that English league football has earned over so many years. And that would leave a gaping hole - to be filled, perhaps, by the likes of La Liga. As an aside, it should also be noted that a further attraction of the Premiership for the watching world is the atmosphere at English grounds. It may not always be loud. But it is alway

It may not always be loud. But it is always unique and authentic. Take Premiership games to far flung corners of the earth and you will lose that authenticity. You will have, in its place, a sorry pastiche. Of course, we can all sympathize with foreign fans of Premiership clubs, who are desperate to watch their teams but who could never afford to travel to England. But their decision to follow an English team was made with open eyes. They weren't duped. They knew perfectly well that English clubs only played competitive games in England and Europe. They will not now abandon their clubs simply because those clubs decide not to play competitive games around the world. It is an insult to these worldwide fans to suggest otherwise. So enough of this sorry affair that has left such a bad taste in the mouth. Let us all hope - for the sake of English football and its fans all over the world - that Premiership chairmen and the odious, oily Scudamore retreat to their plush lairs to lick their wounds and to decide that

Let us all hope - for the sake of English football and its fans all over the world - that Premiership chairmen and the odious, oily Scudamore retreat to their plush lairs to lick their wounds and to decide that they were trying to bite off more than even they could chew.

Jim B you are dead right. but where can you draw the line? Everybody who supports England hates foreign players taking the places of English players, but the foreign players make the Premiership what it is today. Take out the foreign players, take out the attraction, take out the money, You have the championship (second best) The chairmen of the Premiership clubs fight against this they form there own league because they want dosh. Can football clubs survive without there loyal fanbase??? My opinion yes some for a while, a lot will go broke, but for the benifit of the FA they should stop the clubs doing this because it will be the end of football as we know it!

All you lot of English conservative crap just want to stick your head in a hole and let the world pass you by. What values are you talking about? The FA sold its soul 16 years ago when they started the Premier League with the sole intent of making it a global brand. Now on the verge of success, you want to regress back to the stone age. If you like English football for the sake of English football, support a Championship team. The EPL, like the other great British business institutions like RBS, Barclays etc are now all over the world. I dont hear any british fool saying we dont want our banks operating overseas cos british public want to put their savings in a bank based only on british soil. What utter conservative rubbish. Face it you conservative british fatheads. Arsene Wenger is right - 10% of supporters come from around the club. If you choose to stick your head in the mud, thats 10% of fan base lost. I'd rather loose the 10% than to be conservative and loose the 90% that is my worldwide au

....audience. So suck it up, you english conservative crap. Your teams readily participate and even crave to be part of the European Champions League and super league. Soon it'll be the world league. like it or not, you have lost your teams to the global world. Like Ikea the furniture chain which is disliked in Sweeden but loved all over the world, whatever the british FA may not be liked in England but will be a great move to the rest of the world. And if you british clowns dont like it, FO. Your clubs dont need you when there is such a wide wide world to tap. Now go bury your head in the wasteland of some godforsaken british moor.

Every Liverpool supporter rejoyced when their club won the Champions League. Will they suddenly stop rejoycing then Liverpool wins the World League? Fact is over time, people come to accept the success of their clubs on a wider stage. So they day will come when the street of Liverpool, Manchester and North London will be filled when their teams parade their trophies won in such places as Bangkok, Sydney, San Francisco or even Joberg.

Some have argued that teams need their community cos thats where their fan base is in. But young brits have long sinced been priced out of their clubs. The next generation of supporters all live elsewhere. All now subscribe to PayTV to watch games. My neighbour in KL, Malaysia wears his Arsenal shirt all the time, so does his kids. His house is full of Arsenal stuff and he even has a signed shirt by Patrick Vieira hung on his wall. He has on display several ticket stubbs of games which he flew all the way to London to see. The fact that he lives in KL does not make him less a fan than one who lives in Highbury. And I think he'd be the first in the queue when Arsenal arrives to play at the Shah Alam stadium.

Utter crap, foreign countries develop your own teams. Im sick of people looking at good old England as just a soft giving nation for foreigners to exploit. Yes the league are the main culprits for exploitation, however if you wanna go buy English football souveigners and watch English football abroad then thats your choice, no one is forcing you to do it, you new where these teams were based when you began supporting them so get over it, you wanna watch a game then cough up for a plane ticket!!!!

its idiots like you that will turn OUR English league into a joke. I am fully behind creating a cup competition to be played overseas with just the premier league clubs involoved, but leave OUR PREMIERSHIP alone!!! its funny because you keep indicating in your article that it is English football and the English premier league, well that is how it should remain ENGLISH.

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