By David Gold
November 28 – Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has promised that there will be no ‘Game 39’ – the controversial plan to play an extra league game overseas – during his tenure.
Speaking to talkSPORT, Scudamore said: “Clearly it [game 39] is not going to happen in our league.
“It’s certainly not going to happen on my watch and I’m not leaving any time soon.
“I’m not going to be raising it again because I don’t think it’s worth it in the scheme of things.”
Other countries, such as France and Italy, currently play their season curtain raiser between the winners of their league and cup competitions in other countries.
French champions Lille played cup winners Marseille in Tangiers this season, whilst Italian league winners AC Milan played rivals Inter Milan in Beijing before their campaign began.
Scudamore admitted that he did like the idea of playing games abroad initially, but that his approach to the issue was one of a realist, pointing to the success of the American National Football League (NFL) matches that have been played at Wembley in recent years.
“It’s been with some irony that we’ve watched the NFL come here in the last few years and people say how fantastic it is that the NFL comes to Wembley,” he said.
“We’ve just done our latest research, and there is about a 4.7 billion TV audience now across the world.
“The Asia Trophy we had in Hong Kong this year has been fantastically successful.
“The Premier League, of all the leagues, probably doesn’t need to go and do it.”
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