by Ben Hughes

Created on: February 14, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

By playing a game overseas, it will give the global fans a chance to watch a game from the world's top domestic league rather than sitting in front of the television and trying to soak up the atmosphere. But this isn't the main motivation for the plan.

Playing games in Asia, Africa or the US will help to raise the profile of the English game and may also introduce an increasing number of youngsters to football as well as physical exercise as a whole. I suppose you could even argue it could help the fight against adolescent obesity.

But let's not forget the real reason the likes of Richard Scudamore, the League's Chief Executive, want to play overseas games: the money. One club, Middlesbrough, estimated just that one extra game a season could be worth around 17million. Who would turn down that sort of money?

MONEY

Well for the sake of the game I think it would be worth rejecting the plan. A European league has already been all but dismissed as the Champions League emerged as its unofficial replacement. Yes, it means the top clubs can play competitively against each other, but it also means an income of millions of pounds a year.

Surely money isn't the main reason for football (or soccer), but it seems to be slowly becoming it as the Premiership quickly turns from leisure and entertainment to a profit-making business.

FANS

But if football is a business, then they need to pay attention to their most important asset, their staff and customers: the fans. This doesn't mean the fans who might come to a game half way across the world, but those who come week in, week out and follow the team up and down the length of the country.

Taking the game away from them will devalue their experience and exclude the people most loyal and most important to them. It would also mean that football is reduced to nothing more than a commodity not what the beautiful game' was invented for.

A WORLD LEAGUE

Staging league matches abroad may be the first step towards a world soccer league. It would take the domestic' nature of the league out of it completely because it's not being played in the country where the teams originate from.

This is not to do with xenophobia or racism but more about the fact that the English Premier League can only be played in England and between English clubs otherwise it will have to change its name. This would be the same for any other DOMESTIC competition in the world.

CONCLUSION

So to keep the Premiership the special contest it is and to maintain its continuing struggle for style over finances, the only way to honour the fans' loyalty is to ensure that games are not played anywhere else but in England.

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