UK Premiership to move....Overseas !!

England’s soccer Premiership has gone off the deep end. Not content with the minor lunacy of allowing a large number of foreigners 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.

The main salesman of the proposal, Richard Scudamore, the CEO of the Premiership, has also declared that he has already received a “torrent of offers” from cities keen to stage games.

FIFA, the international governing body will consider the matter at the next meeting of its Executive Committee on 14 March in Zurich, and recent comments by President FIFA Sepp Blatter apparently leave little room for compromise. “This will never happen, at least as long as I am the president of FIFA,” he told the BBC recently.

But with this kind of money on the table, rules can be bent, jurisdictions outflanked, and governing bodies challenged in court or by government. This is something that Scudamore has already hinted at, stating that approval by the English Football Association would be sufficient to make the proposal a reality.

Blatter’s attempts to mobilize opposition both within the FA, by stating that the proposal would harm England’s plans to host the 2018 World Cup, and among English fans, suggest his position may ultimately be weaker than he would like. Furthermore, much that looks like criticism and opposition now might actually look like holding out for a payoff or a slice of the cake later on.

So, in the not so distant future, English soccer fans may well have to get used to watching games on TV at unusual hours, played by teams called ‘Manchester United,’ ‘Chelsea,’ or ‘Wigan,’ with the foreign faces in the stands matching the foreign ones on the field.

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I highlight this story not because I am a football fan, I am not. I do so because it yet one more symptomatic example of our overall National decline.

Personally I don't care if they play on the moon. Anyone over the age of majority who finds it necessary to play running, jumping, kicking games or any other sporting pursuit, excluding shooting or fishing, into adulthood is suffering from arrested development. If one were to run about the street playing chuff chuffs or making engine noises and emulating driving a car or holding ones arms outstretched pretending to be an airplane one would quite rightly be locked up. Throw a ball in and for some reason it is all now regarded as normal adult behaviour ????????..

But, what really 'grinds my gears' is the obscene amounts of money these inept work shy arse tunnellers are paid for essentially doing nothing of any worth whatsoever, whilst ordinary decent British men and women work themselves into an early grave just to place food on the family table.

Premiership to move overseas?. Fuck off then........ and take your stinking foreign menagerie with you.

Pip pip