Hi – please read this article about Premier League games being played abroad http://www.youcuju.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57 – I feel very passionate about this and feel it will cheapen our beloved game – there is a petition to submit to the Premier League to stop this happening – please vote yes or no on the petition if you want this to go ahead and the results will be submitted to the money men in the League. Thanks
no - but if enough people sign the petition at least the fans get a say to protest. the league have taken it too far
??? Without the fans they wouldn't make any money at all. Now if the fans won't actually voice their opinion where it counts, by not supporting the team monetarily, I don't think it will make much of a difference (i.e. a petition), so I do see your point there. But, back to the issue, the reason this really disturbs me is more because by adding a 39th game it completely cheapens the fair schedule where you play everybody twice, once home and once away. I could just see a team win the title by one point because they had a much easier 39th game than the second-placed team did. If there are teams that want to give up one of their regularly-scheduled home games (and the visiting team is OK with it as well), then that's their decision and I would be okay with that, but absolutely not with adding a 39th game to everybody's fixture list.
yep - there is no way to make it fair - plus - think about it - this is the bigginning - how long before the likes of Juve, Madrid etc want a slice of the cake and a european super league is created with games across the globe - seems impossible but it begins with things like this
I would love to catch a Prem game at the new Meadowlands. As long as they don't add a 39th match I'm all for it. It's nothing the NFL hasn't already started doing. Think about if say, Boro and West Ham want to come over for a week and play their home and home at the Meadowlands and Baltimore. I don't see the harm. It dosen't upset the competitive balance at all. Their fans might not like missing out on one of their 19 home games. But think about it if the revenue from these games is the difference between signing that extra player in January that puts you in the hunt for Europe or even more important, keep you up, I think folks will change their tunes quick. A regularly scheduled game like this has implications on revenue both long term and short term. It's only a matter of time before some a couple of far-sighted management group pulls it off. I don't know if something like this makes sense for a Big 4 club. But for a a middle and lower tier clubs think what selling out an 80K stadium would do for a club like Fullham. Not just in terms of the quick revenue hit but also long term exposure. The dollar is shit right now so it probably wont happen soon but it will happen.
One team loses home advantage though, and it does count without home advantage Sunderland would be below Derby this season. A crap idea why should we play games just so some plastic supporters can see their idols.
Fulham need a point to stay up last game of the season and the 39th game pits them with already relegated Derby in Thailand. Birmingham a point ahead of Fulham are pitted in LA against Man Utd. Fulham get to play Derby 3 times Birmingham have to play Man Utd 3 times, whats fair about that.
If you look at it that way, then you can say that the FA Cup is a hugely unfair competition because it doesn't have home and away legs. It is understood the additional fixtures could be determined by a draw but that the top-five teams could be seeded to avoid playing each other. You get a bad draw, that is just the luck of the draw.
the FA Cup doesn't end up with you being relegated. People look forward to seeing their team at the weekend live and its one of the omaor pleaseures after a hard weeks work. This would just be the beginning - whats to stop Europe muscling in and having a European super league played all over the world? By the way - home advantage is massive - and so is who you play
So why stop their why not scrap home and away altogether and just draw random fixtures. If you get a bad draw its just the luck of the draw. you dont get relegated in the FA cup
If anyone hasn’t noticed the Premiership is all about money now. Look at the trophy it’s got “Barclays” written on it in bigger letters than “Premiers League Champions”. And when a player gets an award or a manager gets an award it has “Barclays”. But something like “manager of the month” in small print (probably at the back). If you end up relegated, then you can’t blame one game. It’s the other 38. The competition rules are set at the start of the season. So every club will be aware of them. And more importantly - Don't all 20 clubs have to sign up to this?
you may like the way the league is going then but i dont. To dissmiss the importance of one game is ridiculous look at the bottom half of the table now and see how 3 points would dramitacally change the standings. All it does is promote unfair competition to make a few more quid disgusting imo.
Being down with the kids all I've got to say is LOL, or maybe ROFL. Hopefully they'll all piss off and set up shop in China, they can take their hairbands wtih 'em, leave the rest of us in peace, watching English football at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Overhyped tossers, do they really think Chinese people want to spend good money watching Wigan? People in Wigan don't even do that.
You would play both ends of the home and home abroad so it actually is fair. In the scenario i detailed: West Ham would host Boro in NYC and then a week later Boro would host West Ham in Baltimore. The EPL attracts the best players from around the world often taking these players out of their home countries domestic leagues. This is not a problem. But just even discuss the idea of moving two games a year out of the country and its bloody murder to some people. I dont get it.
Goal difference means a lot too. Every Bolton fan knows that. I suppose if this was 1998' and Everton were relegation battlers. I'd most probably take a different view on things. I'd just be p1ssed off at Everton for signing up for it.
Excellent idea. It's just the Brits trying to stop the World game developing, the World has caught up and they hate it. BEST IDEA EVER!!!!1111!!!!11
To be honest, the FA Cup is incredibly based on luck - maybe not on who ends up winning the thing but, for everybody else, in terms of how far you get (you have equal chance of drawing Chelsea away as you do drawing a League Two team at home in the third round). And I kind of really like that, but I want the league season to be incredibly fair and even. It's okay to have both. It may not be as important to other Americans, but it has bothered me a bit that the major league sports leagues in America have gotten further and further away from even schedules (especially baseball) over the last couple decades, and I love how every European soccer league that I can think of is as fair as you can possibly get (same number of games versus every league opponent, although Scotland does the weird split thing, but even that is pretty fair).
So add an extra 2 games to the season in an already congested fixture calender. Alls well and good but it wont be Boro v West Ham across the board. Man Utd v Sunderland wont be neutral anywhere you play it Thailand, the US and Australia would all be United home games. They wouldnt come to see sunderland or support Sunderland,it just spits in the faces of real fans. Its a bad idea because its not fair.
What a bad bad idea. I'd go the opposite way. I'd have all league games played at 3pm on a Saturday again.
Adding a 39th match and unbalancing the schedule is garbage as you've indicated. The purity of the balanced 38 match home & home format w/o playoffs or other gimmicks is a big part of what drew me to soccer to begin with. If the econmics/logistics for certain clubs dont work they needn't participate. Still, this idea is a financial winner for many clubs and also a great opportunity for foreign EPL fans. If two clubs decide they want to play both ends of a home and home abroad, that does NOT unbalance the schedule. The way the league is going about this may be f'd up but the concept of the EPL having some matches abroad is not.