Even for football, it was a pretty blatant demonstration of how these things really work. Still on Friday, Premier League chief executive Ricardo Mestres said the game calendar is at an “inflection point” – “there is a lot of football being played and there is constant expansion,” he said. A week couldn’t even pass without NBC executive Jon Miller countingAtlético about bringing Premier League games to the United States.
Miller’s suggestion wasn’t exactly the Premier League’s notorious ’39th game’ plan – rejected in 2008 after a backlash from fans and opposition from FIFA – but you can see how it’s going. Perhaps most concerning was Miller’s comment that it is “something we will continue to defend.” In fact, they are words that all of football should be aware of. With a broadcast deal worth around £2 billion over six years, NBC is one of the Premier League’s biggest partners, and the American market that all of football is obsessed with reaching. Other broadcasters have previously voiced private complaints about what they see as the superior access NBC receives.
On Wednesday morning, much of the game was going against plan, most notably the Football Supporters’ Association. There was also a confidence that the independent regulator could block such plans, which could well represent its first success. It is for all of this that the Premier League has confirmed that it has no plans to hold games abroad, but the most significant aspect is the influence exerted in the long term; the way these ideas are disseminated and gradually normalized.
Nothing about this is normal, however. Holding games abroad goes against what national leagues stand for and disrupts their competitive integrity. The league cannot function fairly if some games are played under different conditions than others, or if there are extra games. One concern some Premier League executives expressed as recently as last year is that such games would essentially be akin to an extra home game for the biggest clubs, given the global support. It’s all about “sporting asymmetry”.
This aspect proved to be “insurmountable” for years, but it could be different in a world where people see numbers amid the growing international dimension of sport. This is also where a critical mass of American ownership is even more relevant and potentially revolutionary. More than half of Premier League clubs are already in some form in US hands, and only a majority of 14 is needed to approve such changes.
When it comes to symmetry, people will no doubt point to the different nature of gaming during Covid-19, but these were obviously exceptional circumstances in the truest sense of the term.
This is not. It’s about transforming the game, continuing to detach clubs from their roots and their community role. It is ironic that this comes in the same week that the Premier League votes on whether to explore the idea of “anchoring” and an overall spending cap.
It’s incredible to think that we’ve gone from a world where fans complained about changing TV start times to this one where there’s talk of moving games around the world. This is just another area where sport offers an illustration of the parable of the boiling frog.
There’s also something bigger here, literally. This is already a world where there is an expanded Champions League, an expanded World Cupan expanded European Championship, an expanded Club World Cup…
This leads to a deeper philosophical question about what this is all for. The intention of all this is capitalist “growth”, as if the perspective were infinite. In a situation where we are talking more than ever about an independent regulator and the social role of the game, is this really how football competitions should behave? How about just having a sustainable game?
“Expansion” is also directly contradictory to this idea.
What will really happen if the biggest clubs play more matches around the planet? It just means they accumulate more resources available in sport, sucking up more interest and wealth that could go elsewhere.
FIFA’s role is all the more intriguing in all of this, especially as the widespread feeling within the game is that such plans are being explored again due to President Gianni Infantinoit is openness to the idea. After all, he is directly seeking to make the global body more active in club football, since the expansion of the Club World Cup it is an open attempt by FIFA to have its own version of the Champions League.
Infantino needs money and some leverage to really make that happen, and facilitating the “39th game” plans could be a convenient part of that. FIFA is in the process of transferring some of its main departments to the United States, while at the same time deepening its relationship with the other future hub of the sport, in Saudi Arabia.
The global body argues that all of this serves to spread the game’s wealth beyond Western Europe, but does this really happen? It would only seem to further reinforce the global power of European clubs, as they would inevitably receive more prize money.
There is also more to it than that. If the Premier League or Spanish clubs moved to the US, would that actually be good for American football? This just creates more emotional bonds with English teams than with local MLS clubs. Some figures are already arguing that Lionel Messi’s arrival simply meant more interest in the global dimension of the game than in MLS. This happens all over the world.
In fact, it’s infuriating to think that when a country’s broadcasting company signs a contract with a foreign league – such as the Premier League – there is no real stipulation that any of that money has to go back into the country’s domestic football. This directly serves to cannibalize the sport. This is why competitions like the Latvian league have had to pay broadcasters themselves to be shown on television.
This is not how football should work.
But that’s where football is going – more of the same, all the time.
