GORDON BROWN has joined the growing list of doubters about plans by the Premier League for a weekend of fixtures in cities around the world. While not rejecting the idea outright, the prime minister was adamant that neither the fans nor the grass roots of the game should be sacrificed for global profits, estimated at £100m. "The fans have to come first," he told Radio 5 Live. "You have to listen to their views and it's important to recognise that the money has to go back into the game.
"If the money is going back into football and is helping to keep the price of tickets down and more fans have better opportunities of going to matches, that might be something people would want to take into account."
That is political-speak for "don't push your luck, lads", but the mood of the Premier League is defiant bordering on arrogant. "We are absolutely committed to a full consultative process," said chief executive Richard Scudamore. "But two days after the end of the 2010 season, the draw for the first matches overseas will take place. It will happen."
The Premier League, already besieged by disenchanted fans, are now on a collision course with Fifa, Uefa and the Football Association, which also has to sanction the proposals to stage 10 fixtures in five overseas cities in January 2011 that were revealed last week. With a bid for the 2018 World Cup in preparation, the FA will be anxious not to offend the bureaucrats of Fifa and equally anxious to appease Fabio Capello's demands for more time with his England team when negotiations with the Premier League over future fixtures begin next month.
The reaction of Uefa, Europe's governing body, was as unequivocal as the opposition of domestic fans.
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"It's a strange and comical idea," said the organisation's president, Michel Platini. "I was laughing because it will not be received by Fifa, the fans or the national associations. You have no English coach, no English players and now maybe you will have no clubs playing in England. It's a joke." All the football federations of the countries hosting Premier League games will have powers of sanction too.
A recent attempt by Roman Abramovich and the International Management Group to hijack one of the opening fixtures in the Russian League - Zenit St Petersburg v FC Moscow - and transport it to Stamford Bridge in mid-March has met with a firm rebuff from Vitaly Mutko, the president of the Russian Football Union.
Scudamore was at pains to point out that the plans to go global were not driven by greed or by the increasing American influence in the world's most marketable league. They were, he said, the inevitable consequence of the globalisation of sport and the need to make the move before anyone else hijacked it.
"The world will not stand still," he said. "There are four or five clubs who will do this anyway. They would make X-million pounds and the rest would make nothing. This is about protecting the 20 Premier League clubs. Far from creating a radical future, this plan limits it."
In a desperate attempt to calm football's understandable concerns, Scudamore also explained exactly how the overseas matches would be organised. Under the plans, the claims of rival host cities would be judged on "real experience of bringing top-class events to cities". The draw for the matches will be made two days after the end of the 2010 season with big clubs seeded, presumably, on their finishing positions in the past two seasons. Club ownership would not influence the destination and travel arrangements would be coordinated so that clubs playing in the same city would be paired in the domestic fixtures the following weekend.
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If, for example, Fulham played Arsenal in Bangkok on Saturday, with Middlesbrough taking on Tottenham in the same city on Sunday, it would be Middlesbrough v Arsenal and Fulham v Tottenham in England the next weekend. Fans who can not afford the air fares will be rewarded with "a TV experience like they've never seen before with 10 live matches broadcast back to back in the UK".
For the club owners, Scudamore's vision is highly seductive. But fans, who already feel disenfranchised, will be even more disenchanted. It's bad enough that their clubs speak with American accents; now they are being whisked out of their reach altogether for a weekend.
"It will be a feast of football," said one club chairman last week. Only the nature of the cuisine remains to be fixed.