Premier League 2019/20

[Gazz]

2 hours ago, Colly said:

On the plus side, if they keep fucking off fans of major football teams it might stop the fucking tories eventually.

I'm convinced they could have stopped Brexit if they'd said that all the foreign players would have to be sold.

[Lineker]

As if by magic:

Quote

The Premier League will eventually sell matches on a Netflix-style channel, its new chief executive, Richard Masters, has said. Masters confirmed that the Premier League had considered launching its own digital service – streaming live games and other content directly – in some countries during the TV bidding process for the 2019-22 seasons.

He confirmed such an option – which would allow the Premier League to charge directly for a “Premflix” channel rather than sell the rights to TV companies – was on the table for the 2022-25 seasons.

“During the last process we spent quite a lot of time and invested a lot of recourse in building out our expertise and capacity in ‘direct consumer’,” said Masters. “We considered whether it would be the right time to test a few markets and decided not to. But we are going to continue for the planning phase in the next commercial term to build out those capabilities.”

He added: “We were ready last time and we will be ready next time should the opportunity arise.”

The Premier League makes £3.1bn a year from TV rights, of which £1.4bn comes from foreign buyers. However, launching its own streaming service in some territories could lead to substantial rises in revenue. In Singapore, Singtel pays £70m a season to the Premier League, yet it makes £175m a year from subscribers who pay around £35 a month for live games. If the Premier League kept these TV rights for itself it could potentially make another £100m in Singapore alone.

The chances of a “Premflix” channel happening in England, where Sky Sports has around six million subscribers and BT Sport close to two million, are slim. But Masters suggested a two-tiered system – with some countries watching games shown by existing TV broadcasters and others streamed directly by the Premier League – was inevitable. “I’m not saying it will happen in the next cycle or when it will happen but eventually the Premier League will move to a mix of direct consumer and media rights sales,” he said. “It is impossible to say when that will be.”

Masters was also bullish about the Premier League maintaining its global popularity despite a recent fall in the value of domestic TV rights. On Thursday, the Premier League announced a massive £2bn deal with NENT for the rights for Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland from 2022-28 – an increase of more than 20% a year – and Masters insisted the Premier League was in robust health. “We have every reason to be optimistic about the future of sports rights. I don’t think the bubble has burst because our business is effectively hedged between domestic performance and international performance.”

Another problem facing Masters is how many foreigners Premier League clubs will be allowed in their 25-man squads after Brexit. Clubs are permitted to have 17 non-homegrown players but the Football Association wants this reduced to 13. Masters believes that anything less than 16 foreigners could damage the league’s standing, as well as the competitiveness of English clubs in Europe.

“If you did have a quota system that was vastly different from Europe, you would put our top clubs at a big disadvantage,” he said. “I think the average number of foreign players that the most likely winners of the Champions League have is 16. So, if our clubs were lower than that, it would be a disadvantage to them.”

Masters struck a conciliatory note, too, saying he felt the FA’s aim to have 35% England qualified players as starters was a “defensible objective”‚ before adding: “We’re not far away from it.” However, he insisted that the view of the Premier League and its clubs was that the existing system was working. “It is delivering a good cohort of talented young England players. And England are fourth in the world.

“I’m old enough to remember when England struggled to qualify for World Cups and European Championships and now they barely lose a game. We don’t want to take any risks with the Premier League because it is phenomenally successful.”

Masters also warned the Carabao Cup would suffer if Uefa and the European Clubs’ Association agree a deal to expand the Champions League by four games. “There isn’t enough space,” he said. “It’s not an absolute that if somehow the shape of the European competitions changes the Carabao Cup is terminally damaged. There are some clever fixture people out there that may be able to slot the thing together. But it would fundamentally alter its trajectory.”

[Baddar]

What's hilarious is that fans who have called for it here will never get it, at least any time soon, but you'll be able to subscribe to every game for a very reasonable price in Kuwait while everyone has to pay multiple companies to watch it in the UK.

[TCO]

47 minutes ago, Baddar said:

What's hilarious is that fans who have called for it here will never get it, at least any time soon, but you'll be able to subscribe to every game for a very reasonable price in Kuwait while everyone has to pay multiple companies to watch it in the UK.

The trick is to stop paying for it here really. A monumental shift is coming whether the Premier League or Sky like it or not. This Premflix idea will be VPN'd to the point where region won't matter anyway. The days of Sky dictating what 3 games you get to see a week for stupid money are on their last legs.

[Baddar]

Sky should be the ones worrying, not the PL. If the PL offer up every game at an affordable price, people will pay it. And in turn, Sky won't be able to charge £30 a month for their sports package when the PL is their one big hook. 

[Baddar]

Bournemouth v Sheff Utd is going ahead but Man City v West Ham has been postponed. 

[MDK]

13 hours ago, Lineker said:

Another problem facing Masters is how many foreigners Premier League clubs will be allowed in their 25-man squads after Brexit. Clubs are permitted to have 17 non-homegrown players but the Football Association wants this reduced to 13. Masters believes that anything less than 16 foreigners could damage the league’s standing, as well as the competitiveness of English clubs in Europe.

This is what I was wondering. How much will Brexit change our transfer rules? 

[Adam]

I really hope they don't call it "Premflix".

[TCO]

They'll call it Premier League+ probably, seems to be the go-to non-inventive term that they're all going for nowadays! Also a nice throwback to Premiership+ when Sky somehow had the audacity to charge for pay-per-view games on top of their subscription fee. 

Sky Sports are fucked either way. Their content is going down and prices up in a dated business model. Trending one way for them.

[stokeriño]

10 minutes ago, Adam said:

I really hope they don't call it "Premflix".

This absolutely reeks of inevitability now.

"It should be called something like, um, 'Love Day'...but not so lame."
"HAPPY LOVE DAY EVERYONE!"

[DFF]

Happy with the result today. After a shaky early period I think we deserved the win.

[Lineker]

Quote

Dele Alli has apologised for a video posted on his Snapchat account in which the Tottenham and England midfielder appeared to mock an Asian man and joke about the coronavirus outbreak.

Alli, who has been on holiday during his club’s winter break, posted the video of him wearing a facemask in an airport departure lounge on Saturday with the message: “Corona whattt, please listen with volume”. The 23-year-old then zooms the camera towards an unsuspecting man of Asian appearance before panning to a bottle of antiseptic hand wash captioned: “This virus gunna have to be quicker than that to catch me.”

The video was subsequently deleted after several complaints were made, with Alli issuing a statement on Sunday evening in which he admitted he had “let myself down and the club”.

“I’d like to apologise for the video I posted on Snapchat yesterday,” Alli said in a video released on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

“It wasn’t funny. I realised that immediately and took it down. I let myself down and the club. I don’t want you guys to have that impression of me.

“It isn’t something that should be joked about. Sending all my love and thoughts and prayers for everyone in China.”

Tottenham have so far declined to comment on the story, although it is understood Alli was on his way to Dubai for a short holiday ahead of next Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Aston Villa.

The incident comes after a markedly racist response to the global health crisis despite only four confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the UK. In Sheffield, a postgraduate student was reportedly verbally and physically harassed in the street for wearing a face mask, while in Leicestershire two students – mistakenly thought to be Chinese – were pelted with eggs on the street in Market Harborough. The Manchester Chinese Centre has received scores of complaints of racist incidents targeting children in schools across the region.

[Baddar]

What a complete and utter wanker.

[Colly]

Such a bellend.

[FLiam]

Still baffles me when footballers do things like this. A) how have you not matured yet? and B) have some common sense that this will be seen by the entire world.

[Lineker]

44 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Still baffles me when footballers do things like this. A) how have you not matured yet? and B) have some common sense that this will be seen by the entire world.

Not to defend Dele at all, but on the second point, it was apparently something he sent to a private Snapchat group with some people he thought were mates. And it got leaked from there. But either way, it was an offensive and moronic thing to do.

[FLiam]

According to David Ornstein, Chelsea have a verbal agreement with Ajax to sign Hakim Ziyech in the summer.

[Naitch]

On 09/02/2020 at 22:33, Liam Mk2 said:

Still baffles me when footballers do things like this. A) how have you not matured yet? and B) have some common sense that this will be seen by the entire world.

Pretty sure most footballers nowadays grow up with a narrow mindset focused mostly on sporting accomplishments over regular education, and the ones at the top are often paid silly money even as teenagers. It's probably not the best environment to learn social values or how to act like a responsible adult.

[DavidMarrio]

1 hour ago, Liam Mk2 said:

According to David Ornstein, Chelsea have a verbal agreement with Ajax to sign Hakim Ziyech in the summer.

Ziyech would be a cracking signing for a lot of teams. If this is true, this is a smart piece of business for Chelsea especially given the rumoured figure being €45mil

[Adam]

1 hour ago, Naitch said:

Pretty sure most footballers nowadays grow up with a narrow mindset focused mostly on sporting accomplishments over regular education, and the ones at the top are often paid silly money even as teenagers. It's probably not the best environment to learn social values or how to act like a responsible adult.

I think you're probably right, and it makes me recall the other month when I read that Joe Cole literally didn't know how to use e-mail despite being nearly 40 years old.