Chelsea and United knew about 39th game

13 April 2012

Premier League chief Richard Scudamore faces unrest from his own chairmen with the revelation today that four clubs, including Chelsea and Manchester United, knew about his plans for a controversial international round of matches before the money-spinning idea was floated to the rest.

Scudamore is determined to press ahead with plans to stage games in selected venues across the globe. The Premier League believe the project is a "natural progression because Europe is saturated with football".

A defiant Scudamore has also told supporters' groups that the so-called 39th game "will happen", despite the worldwide criticism that led to him cancelling a meeting with FIFA to discuss the plans last week.

But it is the revelation today by The Mail on Sunday that a privileged quartet of chairmen had advance knowledge of his plans that will anger opponents of the plans among the 20 Premier League chairmen.

It had been thought that all 20 heard about the controversial proposal at a meeting last month, but Scudamore revealed that he had privately briefed four trusted clubs, Chelsea, United, Bolton and Blackburn, who are on the League's audit committee.

Other clubs will now ask why they were not at the forefront of discussions, most notably Liverpool, who are believed to have reservations about the idea.

Scudamore's select briefing explains why United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was able to claim that he had been tipped off about the proposal prior to the League meeting by his club's chief executive, David Gill, but was told to keep quiet about it.

Scudamore used a private meeting with Football Supporters' Federation chairman Malcolm Clarke and fans' representatives from Chelsea, Sunderland, Aston Villa and Liverpool to insist that many of the foreign FAs who have publicly spoken out against the international round would actually welcome such a money-making move.

"He made no secret of the fact that he was ploughing on with the scheme," said Clarke.

"His attitude was that the Premier League clubs had agreed in principle to play games abroad and his job was to find the best way to make it happen. His fear is that the big clubs will break away unless this goes ahead in some form."

Far from being a recent development, the 39th game has actually been two years in the planning. The Mail on Sunday has had exclusive access to a presentation made by Australian-based sports promotion company Global Football Events to the Premier League.

GFE's document, entitled Twenty Clubs; Ten Matches, Five Cities, One Round of the World's Premier League, evolved from detailed discussion involving initially the League Managers' Association and, ultimately, Scudamore.

The document names five cities — Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Dubai, Beijing and Melbourne — as venues.

The likely date for the matches is said to be February, around the traditional time of the fifth round of the FA Cup.

The document points out that research over the last 10 years shows that normally only eight Premier League clubs are left in the Cup at that stage.

The fixtures were planned in four groups of five teams, taken from the previous season's League table, with first playing sixth, second v seventh and so on.

Factors governing the choice of venues were the weather and the time difference for broadcasting rights in order to guarantee 48 hours of viewing time for the whole programme.

"This is the natural progression of the League," said a source close to the planning.

Fans groups from around the country are now on alert in case Scudamore and key supporters, such as Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon, try to come up with different ways of getting League or cup games played around the world.

Clarke, who hopes the FA council will vote against the proposal on March 11, added: "It was a very worrying meeting from a fans' perspective.

"We made it clear that we are against any competitive games whatsoever being played abroad."

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