Partners: GoodsFromJapan | JapanVisitor | PortugalVisitor

Premiership Football News: The Great Premier League Takeaway

Andy Greeves

Pre-season is well and truly in flight and for the Premiership big-boys, it's time to rack up some serious air miles.

Gone are the heady summer evenings when top flight English clubs would warm-up to the new campaign with countless visits to local, lower league sides. Nowadays pre-season, like everything else in the Premier League, is big business and clubs are willing to put in the miles if it means securing a few extra millions in the bank come mid-August.

There's not one Premiership club that will remain on UK shores for the entirety of this summer. Hull City, Tottenham and West Ham will take part in the Premier League Asia Cup in Beijing, Chelsea are touring the US and just a few nights ago, Liverpool beat Thailand's national team in Bangkok. Even the new boys are getting in on the action – Birmingham are in Austria, Wolves in Australia and Burnley are visiting the West Coast of America currently.

The likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea will make between £3m-£5m from their trips abroad this summer in appearance money alone. While that kind of figure is a small drop in the ocean in terms of the club's overall turnover, the real worth in these journey is in building a long term, global fan base. Ten years ago Manchester United estimated they had a fan base in the region of 10 million, but years and many foreign tours later, that figure now stands around 333 million.

What clubs and sponsors dream of with these trips is cracking 'key markets' overseas. With five trips to America in six years, Chelsea seem intent on 'conquering the States'. With 65,289 and 81,000 crowds at their two matches so far, it would appear the club has more than achieved that goal. Especially looking round the stadiums the games were played at in Seattle and Pasadena, with a sea of Chelsea shirts on show.

Premier League footballers are of course household names, even in the 'soccer' skeptic USA. Matches from England's league are watched in 600 million homes in 202 countries worldwide, with the sale overseas rights for the league currently worth £625m over a four year period. Asia, the Middle East and America are developing as particularly prominent markets for the Premier League, which is why the vast majority of teams are heading for this area.

The number of friendlies played by English teams overseas will again raise questions over the possibility of a '39th fixture' being added to the league calendar and played abroad. Premier League Richard Scudamore is a known advocate of adding an 'international round' of competitive fixtures, to be played in cities such as Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Dubai and Sydney.

Italy has broken with tradition in recent years and started to host its 'Super Cup', the equivalent of England's FA Community Shield, overseas. The clash has previously travelled to the US and Libya and on the 8th August, Inter Milan will play Lazio in Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' Olympic Stadium. If it weren't for Wembley's debt, one wonders if the FA Community Shield would be embarking on a similar overseas tour this summer.

Despite their international jet setting every summer, the powers that be at Manchester United seem, on the surface at least, adverse to playing competitive league games outside of England. When questioned this week on the subject, United chief executive David Gill said a 39th game is "highly unlikely" to ever be played in a season, especially abroad. "If you are talking about a 39th game how do you get the symmetry?" he continued. "The domestic competition is the domestic competition. The Premier League is the Premier League in England. The Premier League should still look at opportunities and ideas but I cannot see an extra game happening."

What Gill did confirm was the possibility of United playing more overseas friendlies in the future and even travelling overseas to play games during the competitive season. The club will be playing a testimonial game in January and could play more games, "if there is a week or 10-day break in the fixture programme," says the United Chief Exec.

The Red Devil's fondness of foreign climbs has extended across Manchester, with rivals City announcing they will travel to Spain to take on Barcelona during the first week of the regular season. This is because Mark Hughes' men will not have a fixture, as their supposed opponents for the 19th August – Everton – are now playing a Europa League Qualifier. Despite the prestige of playing in the Nou Camp, there will be many who wonder if City may have been better taking a breather while the rest of the league plays that week.

Last year, the NFL staged its first ever competitive game in London, when Miami Dolphins took on the New York Jets at Wembley. Another such fixture has been arranged this year, confirming the fact that overseas matches are here to stay as far as American Football goes. The excitement generated by this NFL game has been mirrored in friendly football matches involving Premier League football teams throughout the summer. Given the amount of support for the league clubs in many different areas around the world, who would deny the fans there a chance to see 'their' clubs?

The success of overseas friendlies is a concern to most football fans in England though. While they equally share the sentiment of wanting their overseas compatriots to see their team play in the skin, the games act as a perfect advert for a 39th fixture. The viability of these fixtures from a financial perspective will certainly meet the approval of sponsors, broadcasters and club accountants when the topic of a 39th game is raised. It is an accepted and celebrated fact that the Premier League is one of England's most successful exports. For the fans in England though, Premier League club games overseas must remain a mere sample of sporting life in the UK, not a full blown takeaway.

Andy Greeves

"The Onside In-Site" Copyright © From 2000. All rights reserved. Soccerphile Ltd.