Gam£ 39 – back on the table? – Back Page Football
Early 2008. The club that are now officially the richest in the world were managed by Sam Allardyce, their biggest signing the previous summer being Joey Barton.
The previous richest club, and the most successful in recent years, were considering it exotic and exciting to be owned by Thaksin Shinawatra, but were fading to an eighth place finish after making a promising start, their table topping early weeks of the season considered as good as it would get and the last time they’d reach such lofty heights for another 40 years. They could, however, be consoled that they boasted the hottest property in English football in their young full-back, Micah Richards.
Speaking of hot prospects, Rio Ngumoha hadn’t been born yet.
It all seems like ancient history now, and it is against this backdrop that the prospect of “Game 39” was first mooted. An attractive opposition to some club owners and also some of the senior executives of the Premier League itself, the idea was that all Premier League clubs would play one match on foreign shores, but rather than anybody be stripped of home advantage and the gate receipts that would come their way, and in the interests of balance and fairness and the integrity of the competition (I’m keeping a straight face while typing this, honest), everyone would still play 19 home matches, thus this abroad fixture would be an extra match-day for everyone – Game 39.
Then
Like with the European Super League in 2021, the backlash from supporters and the media alike was so instant and so fierce that the idea was swiftly quashed. However, like the European Super League, it’s never really gone away, it’s always lurking under the surface, ready to burst out again. For the latter, by the time of the next TV deal, the re-vamp of the Champions League, with the extra match-weeks and its own rather liberal interpretation of the Swiss System, it has turned into a de facto European Super League. Likewise, the expansion to include third and fourth placed teams from the richer leagues in 1999 was in response to similar Super League threats. One could argue though that these want-away clubs had to be placated and that the re-imagining of the old competitions has been a necessary compromise.
An obvious compromise to Game 39 would have been to play the Charity/Community Shield abroad. This particular showpiece game has undergone so many changes during its existence, and is met with such indifference even by match-going “legacy fans”, that moving it abroad may not have been met with the same negative reaction and would still give greater foreign exposure to the English game. However, given that this match would not fall under the umbrella of the Premier League, it’s difficult to gauge if this would have generated the same interest for foreign fans, or been considered worthwhile by the English authorities. Not to mention Wembley having to be utilised for every possible match in order to both justify and recoup the rebuilding costs. Furthermore, the pre-season tournament of the “International Champions Cup” began to grow around this time, with the influential European teams playing each other in venues throughout the globe, perhaps pacifying football supporters in these areas who could at least attend a game involving these teams, albeit in friendlies (“exhibition matches”, they’d no doubt call them), which the Charity/Community Shield also effectively is.
However, the Spanish authorities did have the imagination to begin playing their equivalent – the Super Cup – abroad, albeit during their mid-season winter break rather than as a pre-season match, something the Premier League wouldn’t have the luxury of being able to do. Perhaps testing the waters for the potential interest in and success of playing a domestic fixture abroad. That they expanded the “Cup” to four teams (the league and cup runners up also included) suggests that it tested very well, so much so that the Italian Super Cup followed suit.
Now
And it is the Spanish and Italian leagues that are bringing Game 39 back to the fore. Both were due to have one of their “regular season” matches take place abroad this season, however, in the last few days, due in part to overwhelming opposition to the move in Spain, including the La Liga players themselves, who have protested by standing still for the first 15 seconds of their match, the proposed Miami hosting of the Villarreal vs Barcelona game in December has been cancelled.
Whether or not Milan’s match against Como in February will still be played in Australia remains to be seen.
Even if it is called off, at this point, it may well be a temporary setback – an overseas game will be pushed for every season. The traditionalists have to prevent it every time, however, the progressives only have to actualise it once, for both sides know that once the first overseas game happens, it will open the floodgates.
If and when it does go ahead, it will force Game 39 back on to the table. The self-styled best league in the world is going to have some difficulty continuing this claim when their rivals leagues have gone global. The danger of being left behind will be very real. The expression “if it ain’t broke” can no longer apply. Back in the late noughties, attempts to justify the mere suggestion of this game by the equally well worn maxim “we can’t be seen to be standing still” were met with derision by sports journalists and fans alike. That dismissal felt all the more vindicated as the Premier League continued to prosper, both in terms of bigger and broader TV deals with every renewal, and in terms of the success of its clubs on the European stage and even the World stage, with Chelsea recently becoming the inaugural winners of FIFA’s expanded World Club Cup.
It came out of the pandemic in better shape than some of its rivals, and saw off the aforementioned specture of the European Super League.
Sticking with the winning formula has worked. It can even be argued that the other leagues are resorting to this game in part to try to compete with the Premier League when it comes to TV revenues and global reach.
However, now that La Liga and Serie A are no longer standing still, our league may be compelled to also move. Problem is, as it stands, the rival leagues will get there first. Those who pushed for this innovation almost 20 years ago will be suppressing the urge to scream “I told you so” with great smugness.
Next
Although it’s referred to as “Game 39”, it’s unlikely to take the form of an extra league game. However, after 18 years, the moniker of Game 39 has just kinda stuck! In all likelihood, it will begin, as it has with the other leagues, with one of the clubs with the biggest international branding and following, so in our case either Liverpool or Manchester United, playing one of their scheduled league games abroad.
Perhaps they will take turns, so that Liverpool will do it one season, Manchester United the next, or after the initial success, both will play a game abroad, but not on the same weekend. Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham will then get in on the act too. The blueprint for this is the NFL’s International Series, so in following their example, only one match will be played abroad each weekend, and probably within a short timeframe rather than being evenly spread out to span the course of a season (again, emulating how the NFL do it). It may even happen for six successive weekends, something that will be made easier from next season when there will be fewer (but longer) international breaks.
During this time, it could also reasonably be expected that the Spanish and Italian leagues will likewise increase their respective overseas games to include the likes of the Madrid clubs, Inter Milan, Juventus, basically the old G14.
Whether or not any league will expand beyond their more bankable clubs to include all 20 members is the only thing I’d be doubtful about. For me, this was the biggest stumbling block of the original plan for Game 39.
Aston Villa, Burnley, Everton, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers – all obviously big clubs with big histories and big fan bases and are rightly big names in British football, but it has to respectfully be asked, how well known are they outside their homeland? How big a crowd could they draw? Would supporters in the USA or the Far East flock to a stadium to see them play each other? (Ironically, Tottenham Hotspur would possibly also have been on that list had their name not been hugely boosted by hosting another sport’s International Series in their eponymous stadium!).
The same applies with greater emphasis for the smaller clubs – again, with all due respect to how far they’ve come, how well run and well managed they are, and how they’ve excelled to reach the Premier League and/or become regulars and in some cases, compete in the top half of the table and beyond, it also has to be noted that Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton & Hover Albion, Crystal Palace and Fulham would be even less known abroad. Again, would the locals in Australia or the UAE fill up a stadium, or the foreign TV audience tune in during their prime time, to watch a match involving two of these teams?
It’s possible that the authorities would bank on (no pun intended) the status of it being a live Premier League game to draw the audience in, and it can certainly be argued it has worked for the NFL – their International Games play to capacity crowds regardless of the stature of the teams involved. The brand of the NFL is enough to sell the game, and maybe the brand of the Premier League will do the same.
As for the integrity of the league, on the pitch, it could create an even bigger gulf as the extra revenue from such an event could see the already richer clubs even harder to compete against, especially with today’s PSR/FFP regulations. On the pitch, however, in a strange way, it might actually make it more competitive if the better known clubs forgo a home game each time. If I supported a struggling team, I’d certainly be more confident against one of the “Sky 6” in the surreal surroundings of a foreign neutral ground in an unfamiliar climate and atmosphere than I would playing them on their own patch. Imagine, however, if one of them were to drop points in the overseas match, and those dropped points end up costing them the title or a place in the Champions League. The uproar would be heard as far away as the overseas stadium they played in. Even so, by the time this happens, I doubt the juggernaut could be stopped.
Once something like this begins, in football or elsewhere, the powers that be aren’t seeing IF it works, they’re seeing HOW BEST to make it work. When has something ever been abandoned after undergoing a trial period? Anyone who’s had to juggle several bags and containers on bin/recycling collection day can attest to this! Or fought with a self-scan checkout. Or the self-serve biometric passport machines we’re herded into when landing back home.
In football itself, for all the problems with VAR (there are now two recent articles to choose from on this site!), there’s not a chance of them shelving it until they’ve got a grip on the technology and other issues with it, we’ve just got to suffer while they learn.
I’m aware I’m getting ahead of myself – the Italian game this may well be halted too, and maybe the prospect will be on the back burner for a few more years – but the back burner is still on, and once they go ahead, they will be here to stay and if anything, they will only increase, even if not precisely in the way I’ve predicted.
Where will it end?
The concern then is – where will it end? They didn’t stop at allowing runners-up from the top ranked countries into the Champions League Preliminary Round in 1997. Domestically, when the FA Cup abolished replays for the semi-final and final, again, it didn’t stop there either. They’ve expanded the World Cup to 24 teams, then 32 and now 48. The European Championships have similarly grown exponentially from the original 4 team tournament. None of these competitions have backtracked on these initial changes, they’ve only continued apace.
It’s therefore worth asking how far will the abroad games go?
Maybe it will just be with the top six of each of the three leagues playing a “home” game abroad. Maybe it will stretch to everyone having a game abroad. The Bundesliga will also get in on the act by then too, along with the bigger clubs from the less fancied leagues, such as the Lisbon clubs and Ajax.
For the Premier League, though, maybe it will go further – maybe they’ll have every team play two games abroad to make the league more “fair” (everyone will then play 18 home games, 18 away games and 2 neutral games). It might even eventually keep expanding until everyone plays a third of their games home, away and abroad respectively.
This is way into the future. It has taken almost 20 years for anyone to even be scheduled to play one of their league fixture outside their own country. It might take another 20 for it to begin to expand in the way I’m saying. Again, though, citing the NFL’s example, where in less than 20 years they’ve gone from not playing outside the USA at all to playing half a dozen games abroad each season (that’s around a third of their matchweeks during the regular season), starting in the UK and expanding to Mexico, South America, Germany and more recently Ireland.
Put it another way. As I said at the beginning (must seem a long time ago now for anybody still reading this!), the concept of “Game 39” was first introduced in 2008. Using the football landscape of the time, if you’d been told in 1988 that in 20 years time there would be numerous top flight league games shown live each weekend on TV at several different times, to such an extent that on some weekends, there would only be one top flight match kicking off on Saturday at 3pm, would you have believed it? If you’d then been told that, in addition to this, the top four in England and other nations would all compete in the “Champions” league (which would have replaced the old European Cup despite old European Cup wins and records still standing in this new competition), that the FA Cup would be considered a minor competition and unnecessary distraction for most clubs in the top flight and even some in the second tier, and that all FA Cup semi-finals would be played at Wembley even if the all the teams involved were based in the north, you’d be questioning the sanity of the person telling you.
That’s what 20 years can do.
If you’d been told even eight years ago about the impact of VAR, the new format for the Champions League (and all European competitions), the new World Club Cup, and 48 team World Cup. Replays abandoned for all rounds proper of the FA Cup. Matchday rules now allowing for nine substitutes, five substitutions can be made each game, and that there would be no afternoon fixtures on Boxing Day, and just one game in the evening, because of TV diktats about 33 “weekends”, again, would you have believed it?
Who knows what will happen in the coming seasons. I can’t believe I’ve been foolish enough to try to predict.
