THE BIG ISSUE
Does FIFA need to experiment with two additional referees?
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Readers replies to last month's Big Issue: 'Should English clubs be allowed to stage Premier League games outside the country?'
“How is just one game in a whole year, which might not even be played in your city, which you might not even see or attend, going to kill off the domestic game in whole countries? Wouldn’t it be the opposite, that an Indian, Japanese or North American 10-year-old, inspired by that game he once saw in person, decides to take up football rather than cricket, baseball or basketball? The fact that they go out of their way to watch English football or buy English team shirts clearly shows their commitment. They deserve the chance to watch games live over there.”
Posted by “Rogorn”
“How incompetent are the Premier League and chief executive Richard Scudamore? In January – to no public fanfare – it was announced that two Russian teams wanted to play their opening league game of the 2008 season at Stamford Bridge. Had this gone ahead with barely a murmur from FIFA or UEFA – a scenario I consider to have been quite possible – then the precedent would already have been set. By going public so early, Scudamore has given FIFA the opportunity to double-bolt the stable door while the horse is still asleep.”
Posted by “Badgerboy”
“I have little sympathy for the foreign fans of the Premier League. You [“Rogorn”] claim they ‘deserve’ to watch games live, but the fact that they spend their time and money watching games on TV and buying replica shirts is neither here nor there. They ‘deserve’ to watch Premier League football about as much as I ‘deserve’ to watch the New York Yankees play at Lords.”
Posted by “Richards”
“English clubs have won just two of the last 23 European Cups and just two of the last 23 UEFA Cups, hardly a league comprising the best teams on the continent, never mind the world. The blatant greed of the proposal is sickening.
I guess if we can’t rule the world politically or economically we might as well try and take over the world sportingly. If I want to watch Real Madrid play live for league points I go to Spain. That’s the principle of football that has held good for 130 years. We don’t need our game being turned into a circus.”
Posted by “MyBoyHarry”
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