The 39 Steps

I’ll only react on your PS ’cause I think enough has been said about that silly idea with playing abroad.

Apart from his accomplishments or wrongdoings on the pitch and trainingfield, I really like the way Moyes presents himself in the media. This is just another example, I love listening to Davey and reading his remarks.

Lets hope Sepp Blatter’s latest comments have kicked this greedy bastard idea where it belongs - in the bin.

It’s a bollocks idea which totally destroys the integrity of the league.

Imagine we are playing for a UEFA cup place, down to the wire and we get drawn against Arsenal, Man Utd or Chelsea.... then the other side in with a shout of the UEFA spot get Derby. Is that a fair league any more? Is it my arse....

I am stunned that the Premier League would come out with an idea like this in public and that these idiots like Wyness have actually backed it!!

These kind of ideas make me seriously consider my future as a fan of football. When it gets to this level of blatant money-grabbing it really makes you want to have 80s football back and not just cos we were awesome.

39 games - out

38 games with each side playing home match overseas - why not?

18 home games = 5% reduction in season ticket prices

Also people say it is taking it away from the fans - Liverpool and United aren?t, it is taking it to the fans. They could even have matches in Norway or Somerset or Malaysia

The ’39th game’ idea could be a winner in terms of decent revenue generation for all teams i.e. not just the ?big four?. Aside from possible organisational/consent ’show stoppers’ the only real ?problem? with the existing proposal as I see it is that of the 39th game being ?unfair? i.e. one club gets an ’easy draw’ and another team gets a ’tough draw’ when they have not ’earnt it’, esp. re the top 5 seeding idea linked to that. A fair solution for that would be to have the following rule, which is known to all clubs before the season starts:

The team your club will play will be the team at the equivalent but opposite in the league table as at 1st December that same season i.e. 1st December 2010. I.e. If say ManU (or Everton hopefully!) are top at that point, they will play (in the ?39th? i.e. overseas game) the team that is bottom e.g. Bristol City or Derby county or whoever it is. Likewise, 2nd top will play 2nd bottom, 6th top will play 6th bottom etc etc. This rewards early season form and solves a few problems: It is ?fair? i.e. the 5th from top team at that time have earnt the right to play the 5th from bottom team by virtue of their performamce in the league to date in that season.
Also, it is likely that the bottom teams are less glamorous than the top teams and therefore the risk of Fulham vs Derby not attracting a full stadium is unlikely as they could be paired with a top team e.g. ManU, Arse, Everton etc.
It is as ?fair? as is possible I believe. I am concerned this could be the ’thin end of the wedge’ though i.e. One or two games a season this way seems fine, but more than that could dilute the fabric of the league too much.
Incidentally, if it was two games a season, the second game could be against the team immediately next to you in the league to balance meritocracy with assisted competition?
As pointed out elsewhere, a 39th game overseas will hopefully give Evertonians from other countries the chance to see their heroes in the flesh.
Football is all about opinions and I think it is an idea worth exploring as it gives more clubs serious additional revenue (e.g. rathar than just the big four). Some clubs could spunk it up the wall e.g. barcodes, or spend it wisely e.g. Moyes? Everton. This could lead to a move toward leveling of the financial playing field over time. In an ideal world there would be a salary cap, but it would need to be global if our league is to remain the star attraction of league football. The top vs bottom idea may not be the forgone conclusion some may presume because the game would be played in an unfamilar, venue, climate, pitch, stadium etc so ?shock? results are far more likely. It could be a ’leveller’.
It seems unlikely it will get FIFA approval though and many of the potential destinations (e.g. Asia) have expressed opposition too.

This whole idea is nonsense!

Nice try at playing devil’s advocate Michael, but it’s still nonsense.

I read a quote somewhere that summed it up for me, it went something like this...

"So you have say Arsenal vs Liverpool in say Shanghai. That’s a foreign venue, foreign managers, foreign players, watched by foreign fans? Yet you will call it the English Premier League?!"

What a load of shite!! Imagine my surprise when that bungling idiot Blatter finally got something right and said he wouldn’t back it!

Neil, I see where you are coming from and agree in some ways. I just think it is worth a go for one season, as that is the only way to find out if the benefits outway the costs. If it is not successful it could then be binned.
I suppose a way to minimise the negative impact of any ’unfairness’ concern would be to make the 39th game worth only 2 points for a win.
If it is not given a try for one season, as seems likely, then we’ll never know for sure whether it would be a good or a bad thing.

Let?s dismiss with the contempt it deserves any notion that this is anything but another attempt to screw more money out television income, both for the matches themselves and for future negotiations for televised rights. In addition it seems to be yet another attempt by good old Rupert Murdoch to increase his ever strengthening stranglehold over the Premier League with the willing compliance of a group of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It seems, from today?s Guardian that this was the brainchild of one Rod Eddington,who is a director of News Corporation (owner of SKY, FOX ETC ETC)
a nd also the owner of an events management company in Australia, keen to bid for mounting the games. So no chance of a conflict of interest there then.

Forget about the sophistry of ?taking the game to the fans?. These people parted company with the fans 18 years ago. The competition will be even more skewed than it is now with a lottery deciding who plays whom three times - except of course the ?top five? who will be seeded. It?s not even equally unfair to everyone.

Look also at the people who are coming out for the idea - Wyness, Levy and then draw your own conclusions(but not ?Rafa? interestingly enough)

With luck this won?t happen this time, but watch this space for more talk of a breakaway league coming back on the agenda.