Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
LORD TRIESMAN
AND MR
RICHARD SCUDAMORE
19 FEBRUARY 2008
Q40 Mr Sanders: Every other national
side, certainly in Europe, is governed by the same freedom of
movement rules, so how come it has not stopped France winning
the World Cup or Germany winning the World Cup or Italy winning
the World Cup? Why is it that somehow England has not won the
World Cup and it is all the fault of the fact that we import these
players, all because we happen to have the best-financed league
in Europe?
Lord Triesman: I am not in any
way disparaging the decisions that have been taken to bring players
into this country to produce the very, very best football that
you can see at senior level, or at least among the two or three
leagues capable of doing that, and Richard's league is certainly
one of those. Others have had different long-term approaches to
the coaching of young players. They are ahead in time terms; we
are not cyclically in the same position. I suppose all I am saying,
Adrian, is that I would like us to catch up but a lot faster than
maybe we would catch up otherwise.
Q41 Mr Sanders: I am not sure the
European White Paper is going to help you achieve that.
Mr Scudamore: On the same point,
first of all David has talked about the England Manager going
to games and only seeing very few players. The England Manager
is in a uniquely advantageous position, with the exception of
having to go to Los Angeles—
Q42 Mr Sanders: He is not English,
is he?
Mr Scudamore:— He can actually
watch every single player who is likely to be eligible to play
within his own domestic league (which is not afforded to any other
national coach just about by the way) so in other words the English
talent that is available does play within England which is a pretty
good starting point. Our 20 clubs, despite what you may perceive,
are entirely committed to youth development both intellectually
and financially. Yes, they do spend money on acquiring talent
from abroad, but absolutely at their core is a youth development
philosophy at every single one of the clubs and the investment
has continued. It is a shame that Alan has left the room because
the foreign owners, Mr Abramovich included, are far more committed
to it intellectually and financially than Mr Bates ever was at
Chelsea. Mr Lerner at Aston Villa is far more committed to it.
He has finished off Bodymoor Heath and has turned the youth development
programme at Aston Villa into a stellar operation since his arrival.
So again we have to credit our foreign owners who in some ways
(here he is, he is back!) with being more financially and intellectually
committed to youth development than some of their predecessors.
Also there are some encouraging signs. If you look at the England
team performance in the under-17s and under-19s championship recently,
they have done pretty well. Coming on to the specifics, I think
you will see from our submission that we are not convinced that
protectionism or quotas is the answer, in both its variant forms.
You have got the home-grown UEFA concept which is a hybrid because
they recognise that they cannot break this down on nationalistic
lines and therefore they have tried this idea of home-grown which
means you have to have been trained and developed for three years
at a club. We think that is completely the wrong solution to the
problem because all that does is encourage the big clubs to go
and buy these players ever younger so that they assimilate quicker
so they become home grown and therefore qualify quicker. If you
take Mr Blatter's home-grown six plus five, again we think that
is flawed because the idea that six have to be qualified to play
for the national team flies in the face of European law—and
we have had this discussion very openly and very pleasantly with
Mr Blatter—and we think he should be using his efforts and
energies to achieve other things in the European arena rather
than banging your head against this brick wall of freedom of movement.
That in itself would lead to some quirks where Ryan Giggs probably
would have chosen to play for England not Wales in order to make
sure he could play for Manchester United, which would create such
a nonsense. We have a problem fundamentally with both the home
grown player rule as espoused by UEFA and the quotas concept,
flying as it does in the face of freedom of movement. The only
solution is an absolute commitment to youth development. We, unfortunately—and
I say unfortunately—only come into this equation at very
much the pinnacle of the game in this country. The Government
and the FA are responsible for all the grassroots with the Government's
commitment to sport, sport in education, all these things. It
is a long-term solution really to get people playing sport, to
get people coached properly. The coaching investment is huge and
it is not really the responsibility of the Premier League, but
clearly we rely on it, we are the end of the chain in some ways,
and we rely on that development at a lower level.
Q43 Helen Southworth: I am listening
with fascination and it sounds almost as if everything in the
garden is rosy but people tell me that we are not achieving as
we should in the national team; people tell me that at every street
corner, so things are not going as well as they should be, so
maybe a little more focus does need to be given by football at
every level rather than just hoping it will get better if somebody
else deals with it. I want to ask you about the aspirations of
young people, turning it the other way round, and instead of saying
how we want the national team to achieve, how we want our young
individuals to achieve. I am hoping that you can give me some
good news around some of the opportunities for talented players
to achieve their aspirations.
Lord Triesman: I think, Helen,
that a lot of the things that both Richard and I have said about
wanting to ensure that young players are recognised early, brought
through early, given every opportunity early, really is about
the aspirational question at the very beginning of the process.
There has been a major report which we have commissioned from
Richard Lewis, the Chairman of the Rugby Football League, about
how to do this beginning to end, and of course the very beginning
point is to recognise that very large numbers of young children,
boys and girls, kids who are not always as able as each other
as well as the kids who are obviously very talented, should get
the opportunity to play the game in the right sort of format with
the right sort of period of play, and that all of that encourages
them not only in the development of individual skills but in the
development of respect and regard for each other and for a team
ethnic as well, rather than an individualistic ethic, which is
a very big and fundamental starting point. One of the crucial
points about Lewis and some of the other work that has been done
by Sir Trevor Brooking, in particular, and others in his team,
is to understand that the way in which you approach the job with
kids when they are very young is very different from the later
phases and you have to have coaches who understand each of those
phases and can help kids meet their aspirations and their ambitions
at each of those ages. It is curious the way we have always known
that in education. We would not have thought it appropriate not
to have teachers who understood the needs of young kids as opposed
to kids as they get older. That is now pretty much in place. Almost
all of the recommendations have been accepted overwhelmingly,
and I want to make sure that we drive all of those recommendations
through so that the format in which those ambitions and aspirations
can develop is there. We probably need something like a green,
amber and red scheme where we are checking that we really are
doing all of these things because a good report is just a good
report and is just words on paper unless you do it all. I think
there is the money in the sport to do it and that money is now
being deployed, and fundamental to it should be that no youngster,
whatever their ability, whatever their gender, gets turned off
by the way in which we take them through this process.
Mr Scudamore: I think, Helen,
you came at this from an aspirational point of view in terms of
the England team and elite talent development, and that is one
particular stream that David has talked about. Clearly aspiration
alone is not going to do that and there is a physical demand,
there is a talent demand, there is a coaching demand, and there
is a development demand. I think, as David has alluded to, at
the elite level, as I said before, the Premier League clubs themselves
only take over at a certain point. We do not run schools and we
are not responsible for every parent that ever managed a child's
development. Therefore it is important that those systems are
in place. The one good bit is the investment in facilities. Certainly
if you go back to the Football Foundation, the Football Foundation
has invested over £600 million in facilities. We think we
have turned the corner in terms of the decline in available football
facilities and that partnership between ourselves, Government
and the Football Association has clearly led to an improvement
in local facilities, and you will all within your constituencies,
hopefully, be able to identify where those facilities have been
improved. There is the other aspect though, is there not? There
is the power of football to help aspirationally those that are
not going to make it as elite footballers and again the community
work is important. All clubs—Football League, Premier League—are
committed to their community programmes, and if you are not going
to be an elite talented footballer, at least the power of football
can be used to create aspirations in other areas. We will have
sent you all—and I would commend it—the Premier League's
Community Report. The Football League has a similar one and the
FA has a similar one. If you want some good news, never before
have the clubs committed as much time, effort and resources into
youth development. Never before have the clubs committed as much
time, effort and resources into community programmes, into reaching
out into the community and using the power of football to achieve
some sort of societal change. Clearly that should have an impact
on young people's lives. It will also, by definition, have an
impact in terms of elite talent development, which is very much
the very narrow, very thin strand now. It is going to be very
few people that come through to make it at the very highest level
but we will catch them.
Q44 Helen Southworth: You would be
very surprised if I did not ask you about the commitment to women
and girls' football. One of the advantages perhaps of looking
at things across the White Paper's perspective is that it does
look at issues around equity, which perhaps in the UK we have
not been as good at as we should have been. What is the FA going
to do to improve things?
Lord Triesman: I think it is very
interesting that it is a sport that is growing very, very fast
among girls and young women. It is probably the fastest-growing
sport in the world for girls and young women, certainly in this
country. There is a great deal more that can and should be done.
We have got a very extensive programme to do that. I think the
popularity of the sport is undeniable. Incidentally, towards the
end of this month the Women's Cup Final is being played at Leyton
Orient and if you or indeed anybody on the Committee would like
to come with me to watch it I would be absolute delighted. It
has not had the kind of exposure that you would need probably
in media terms to build that more rapidly and I think there are
things potentially we can do about that, although it is not easy
because it does not have the same impact as certainly the senior
men's game. We are investing in it. It is one of the central functions.
We have not regarded it as a function which is simply a part of
the amateur game or simply a part of the professional game but
it is a central function for us at the FA. I have made it very
clear that I will want to promote it at any opportunity, which
is why I extend the invitation because it would help promote it.
Q45 Helen Southworth: Can I put in
a plug for girls who in quite a number of areas in the country
find that they do not have enough competition when they are wanting
to excel. The FA has put in hand a pilot project for girls 11-plus
to allow them to compete with boys where that is appropriate and
where they have the abilities and their coaches believe that that
is an effective way forward. Will you take a personal look at
this and make sure that the benefits of it can continue?
Lord Triesman: Absolutely, I have
already started to do so and I will continue to do so. I think
it is probably the right way of doing it, Helen. It is always
worth piloting something rather than assuming that you have definitely
got the right answer to it, particularly when a number of professionals
in the business have got to be convinced of it yet. I think it
is a really, really good pilot and I can see no reason why we
cannot draw some very profound conclusions from it.
Q46 Philip Davies: Can I press Mr
Scudamore a bit more on the point that Adrian raised which is
the nitty-gritty about the fact that sporting bodies have been
carrying on for years perfectly successfully making football into
one of the most, if not the most, successful sports in the world.
You speak in your submission very warmly about the White Paper
on Sport on the whole. Is it basically because at the moment you
are coming up against a brick wall with UEFA and FIFA. Sepp Blatter
and Michel Platini are very supportive of the home-grown player
thing which you disagree with them fundamentally about. It appears
over the weekend that they have been wiping the floor with your
"mad" proposal to play a 39th game somewhere in other
parts of the world, which strikes me as being one of the worst
ideas I have ever heard and obviously they think it is one of
the worst ideas they have ever heard. Is the nitty-gritty of this
that you are coming up against a brick wall with UEFA and FIFA
so you are trying to bypass them, and the EU might be a bit more
receptive to some of your wild ideas?
Mr Scudamore: Let us go back to
your original statement, in terms of the White Paper, if you read
it, we have said, as I said in my answer to Mike Hall's question,
that we are broadly supportive of the thrust of the paper because
what the White Paper says is there is not a one-size-fits-all
approach across all sports and there is not a one-size-fits-all
approach across every country because fundamentally sport is organised
at the national level and it is a question for national identity.
What we also believe fundamentally—and I go back to my point
whether it be a freedom of movement issue or whether it be a competition
law issue—that the solutions to the issues have to be worked
out within the framework of European law, not outside the framework
of European law, and therefore I suppose you would describe the
Premier League's position as that of free marketeers in that sense
that we have to work within the legislative framework that is
there. That is why if we are—your words—warm towards
the White Paper it is because we can see that the thrust of the
White Paper is saying that it does not believe that you can rewrite
European law in order to give sport a unique leg-up against other
industries but what it also goes on to say is that sport is in
a unique position because it recognises the economic impact of
sport and it recognises the societal impact of sport—two
things which we believe sincerely are right. I think the thrust
of your question is: do you go and take your chances with those
that you think you have got the best solution with? Remember,
our response to the White Paper for Sport was submitted long,
long, long before any ideas about how we might globally expand
the Premier League. I have been interlocking with the European
Commission now for almost ten years. This is a long-term position
that we take. We have tried to convince the law makers in the
European Commission—and Alan and others have helped—that
what we do is proportionate and compatible with European law,
and that is our position. That is what is reflected in the White
Paper. You have tried to link this latest draft proposal into
that political position, but it is not, this is very much a long-term
position that the Premier League has held in its view to Europe
and our White Paper response that you have read reflects our long-term
position.
Q47 Philip Davies: So it is just
a happy coincidence the fact that you seem to disagree on a daily
basis with FIFA and UEFA and you are trying to bypass their responsibility
for the sport via the EU?
Mr Scudamore: I know there are
happy journalists sitting in the wings. If you were to go back
and Google our position on the freedom of movement, on competition
law, certainly on home-grown players and quotas, our position
has been entirely consistent for probably the last ten years.
Q48 Chairman: I wanted to ask about
the 39th game which Philip has raised. You suggested that you
were perhaps a little surprised by the degree of hostility that
this proposal was met with. Given that it has been slammed by
almost every external commentator, is it not now a dead duck?
Mr Scudamore: No it is certainly
not a dead duck because it has only just started. We have only
had eight days of what is probably a year-long consultation process.
We have a unique challenge in the Premier League, which those
of you who are closest to it and know it best will have seen,
in that we cannot start consultation with anybody until we have
spoken to our 20 shareholders. The interesting bit about speaking
to your 20 shareholders is that at that point you have to publish
publicly. It is not like any other company where you could have
a board meeting where you could sit round and discuss a takeover
target or discuss a merger or an acquisition or a strategic move
and at least expect some degree of confidentiality. We live in
a world where to discuss it with our clubs is to discuss it with
the world media. There are beneficiaries sat to my left and my
right of that particular phenomenon and they are all smiling and
writing. The only thing that has been difficult to convince people
of is that this is the start of a consultation process; we have
to now consult widely and we have to consult properly. We are
not looking to do any of this immediately. It is a proposal that
will need shaping, it will need looking at, it will need working
on, but it is a strategic move. It is a strategic move to say
that there is an issue of globalisation. We, as Alan has alluded
to, have benefited enormously. English football has benefited
enormously from the collectivisation and solidarity of its Premier
League. That has led to huge benefits to my colleagues in the
Football Association and the Football League because this is where
we operate almost as a tripartite where the interest in our club
football undoubtedly generates huge interest in the FA Cup, the
Carling Cup and the Football League. Do not think that our success
has been at the exclusion of others. If you look at the success
of the Football Association over our 16-year history, if you look
at the success of the Football League over our 16-year history,
football in this country has developed together and we have all
benefited from that success. Therefore, in a sense, what this
set of proposals is is work in progress. It started only ten days
ago. Yes, it has had some hostile reaction and clearly we are
not going to take this forward if it in any way does not meet
with some form of acquiescence from FIFA. Certainly the Football
Association to my left and my colleagues from the Football League
will have to be comfortable with whatever move and whatever direction
we take. We have got until January 2009 to shape any proposals,
to consult widely, consult properly, and to see how we manage
to move forward in what is now a global sporting phenomenon, at
the same time as keeping all 20 clubs within because, remember,
the whole game benefits. Not only do our 20 clubs benefit but
also with our redistribution mechanisms the rest of football benefits
all the way down the pyramid, and therefore it is far better that
we do this collectively and do it strategically and do it for
those reasons than somehow or other the global phenomenon of football
it is captured outwith any formal collective structures which
we have fought for—and Alan knows how hard we have fought
to keep that collective structure in place. Therefore, all I would
say to you is there is not much else I could tell you about the
"daft" idea, to quote Philip, because it literally is
in its infancy and the consultation starts, and it starts, rightly,
with our colleagues at the Football Association, then it will
go on to FIFA in the next couple of weeks and we will roll it
out to see what sort of shape it is in. It will be interesting
to see in three months, six months, nine months, 12 months what
shape our international strategy looks like.
Q49 Chairman: Perhaps I could ask
the FA because we were told that the initial response of the FA
to this proposal was positive. Then a few days later you put out
a statement saying that you had serious reservations about it,
so which is it?
Lord Triesman: Chairman, I think
the interesting thing about the very, very first comments that
I read is that I found it very difficult to source them. Let me
say that I will always take seriously new ideas, and I think the
time to worry is when you do not hear the new ideas, but then
you have got to evaluate the idea properly. We have taken a few
days to think about a number of the factors that are involved,
and these are factors that we will want to talk through with the
Premier League. Firstly, I have been very clear from the beginning
that whatever is proposed must not damage the domestic competitions
or the prospects of the national side and fixture congestion and
those issues are real issues, and I do not at the moment believe
that we have seen what might be solutions to those, but that is
a discussion which needs to be had still more thoroughly. Secondly,
I am quite clear that the relationships with the international
bodies have got to be sustained, not just because of the interests
of the 2018 World Cup, although that is a very, very significant
interest for us and it would be foolish for anybody to pretend
that it is not, but because I think harmonious relationships with
the international bodies are vital generally for football and
for international competitions and there would be no point in
flying in the face of that. Thirdly—and all of these are
things I have put on the record more or less from the first day
so I do not think there has been any mistaking them really—I
think there has to be a real sense of confidence among the whole
of the football family, the fans included, that a proposal is
a viable proposal and a credible proposal. That brings me to the
fourth point, and it is related very directly to the third, and
that is that people should feel that whatever happens does not
induce the kind of unfairness which may mean that their side which
is always fighting on the edges of the relegation zone is suddenly
confronted with a third game against a side that can probably
do them considerable damage on any average encounter. There are
all of those kinds of issues and I will say—and I have said
it to Richard, there are no secrets between us on this matter—these
are all issues which I think we have so far not heard what I would
regard as sustainable answers to, but Richard is quite right,
that some of that discussion would still have to happen. There
may at the end of it be a very, very different outcome and very
different proposals, I do not know, but one of the things which
I think would be extremely important is that as we have the discussion,
and whether the objections that I have raised are sustainable
objections or turn out not to be, that what we do not do is just
shoot from the hip but we think about it at each stage. I would
rather be thorough. I do not think thoroughness is ever going
to turn out to be a fault in the way we work.
Mr Scudamore: Can I add quickly,
it is very interesting—and David and I have not rehearsed,
we met for 30 seconds before we came in—the slide that we
left with the clubs when we presented to the clubs last Thursday
week said there are huge challenges and things that we need to
think through and these are in this order: 1) primarily, fixtures
and fixture calendar and congestion; 2) sanctions and our relationship
with international bodies around the world; 3) the symmetry of
our competition and whether that impacts upon the integrity of
our competition; and 4) fan/supporter reaction on a worldwide
basis. That happens to be the four issues that David has just
raised, so we are not going into this blissfully unaware that
they are the four big issues, and we recognise that entirely.
Q50 Chairman: So you are now agreed
on the potential problems that have to be overcome; but, Richard
Scudamore, you originally said on Radio Five that you had had
positive discussions us with Brian Barwick about this—he
was the initial source?
Mr Scudamore: It depends which
bit of Radio Five you listen to. If you listen to the bit they
clipped and put into the news programme as opposed to the whole
interview, when I was asked about Brian's reaction, I said quite
clearly this: Brian Barwick's reaction when I told him was initially
positive but within seconds he said, "However, within two
weeks I am sure I will have come up with a whole host of reasons
why I don't like it." What happened was that Radio Five chose
to only on the news clips run the bit that Brian Barwick was supportive
of it. I think in fairness to Brian you have to get the whole
thing in the right context.
Q51 Mr Sanders: Can I come at this
from a different angle and that is this: I represent a part of
the country that is a long way from its nearest Premiership team
so why are you not thinking about having the 39th game in a part
of the country that does not have any—
Mr Scudamore: If Torquay wish
to bid to be a host city we will look at it.
Q52 Mr Sanders: I am serious. If
it is a national game, you go on about the pyramid and how you
are putting money into the grassroots, you talk about how to get
people interested. I am fed up with seeing kids in Premiership
team strips rather than the local teams that there are in Devon,
so why not come to Devon and have a 39th Premiership game down
there?
Lord Triesman: This is sheer happenchance
really but the very first game I saw on the second day that I
was working at the FA was AFC Wimbledon playing Torquay in one
of the FA's tournaments, and you won two-nil, when you found out
that the ball should be played on the ground rather than in the
air, that is quite true. The thing I really wanted to say was
that the enthusiasm of the supporters from both sides, including
people who had made a good journey up to Kingston-on-Thames to
watch a match, does show that enthusiasm and it really does illustrate
a point I was trying to make earlier, and that is clubs at every
single level can engender that enthusiasm with the kids' scheme
(which was also visible because of the youngsters who had been
brought along to see that game) which are very, very dynamic—absolutely
alive and well. I do not think that anybody has any difficulty
in getting from Torquay to Kingston because I saw them do it.
They did it and they did it with fabulous enthusiasm. You could
not fault them for travelling fans, I promise you that.
Q53 Chairman: Richard, do you not
want to add anything?
Mr Scudamore: Not really. There
is a difficult topic which over the next 12 months we will have
to explore which is this concentric circle theory of interest
in a team. Yes, I come from a place—my accent probably gives
it away—and an era which says that you support your local
football team, the one that you can get access to, but my parents
took me, and my big message to everybody is "parents: take
your children to your local football team" because that way
they might just get engaged in it. You might think that is odd
coming from the Chief Executive of the Premier League but the
fact is that is not going to be for everyone. We cannot escape
the fact that we have captured the attention of the world and
not just the people born within sight of the stadium of the club
that carries the name. We have attracted national attention. There
have been three phases of Premier League development really. The
first eight years was a domestic expansion where the teams became
national teams. Almost all 20 once they played in it became of
national interest. It was at the end of our eighth year that The
Times put a page in the paper that said what was happening
in the Premier League today and every single club got a block
in that page and Liverpool famously had a line that said "nothing
happened at Liverpool today". For a national newspaper to
take up newsprint saying nothing happened tells you where the
Premier League had got to in terms of its national influence.
In the second eight years, which is more on my watch, it has become
an international development where the phenomenon is having gone
from one international broadcaster to over 200. The next phase
is different to international. We see the next phase as being
a global phase. Does that mean that you lose your roots? No, it
does not. Does it mean that you do not still have that absolute
hard core of fans born within sight of the stadium, committed
season ticket holders? No, it does not. Does it mean you have
to work harder at all this stuff to keep your roots absolutely
embedded in the community? Yes it does. And it does bring new
challenges because you have to work harder at all this stuff in
some ways to keep yourself grounded where the football clubs need
to be grounded which is right in the community.
Q54 Mr Hall: I think it is a completely
barmy idea and from what you have said it is already fatally flawed
because you have talked about the symmetry and the integrity of
the Premiership and that is based on every club playing each other
home and away and the team at the end of the day with the highest
number of points wins and the bottom three go down. If you change
the fixture list to say that arbitrarily there are going to be
ten fixtures somewhere, anywhere, in the season that will influence
the outcome of those that are relegated and those that are Premiership
champions you have destroyed that particular integrity. I think
it is a completely barmy idea.
Mr Scudamore: Okay, that is an
opinion!
Q55 Mr Hall: So you do not think
that each team playing home and away and the best team wins and
the poorest teams get relegated is how it should be sorted out
then?
Mr Scudamore: That is perfect
symmetry. We know the one issue we have to wrestle with is the
deviation from that perfect symmetry. You cannot do this, in our
view, without deviating from the perfect symmetry. The only other
way to do it is anathema to us, which is to take one of the regular
fixture rounds abroad, and that would mean depriving season ticket
holders of a home game and everything else. Not only depriving
season ticket holders of a home game but altering the home advantage
because clearly your home fixture would be played somewhere else
and that would be wrong. The only way to do this is in some ways
to upset the symmetry. The issue we have to work on—and
we are working on—is coming up with a format. Remember,
we have never said who is going to play who or what the format
is, whether it is an open draw, whether it is completely fixed,
whether it is based on last season's standings; we have never
declared what the best way of doing it is. That is what we are
working on and we will decide after consultation as to whether
that deviation from perfect symmetry is proportionate and worth
it in the scheme of things to achieve the objective we are trying
to achieve. If it is deemed not to be worth it then the whole
thing will be reformatted and we will think again about our global
expansion. I take your point; it is fundamentally the big issue.
Q56 Alan Keen: I fell into temptation
and when David mentioned Torquay beating AFC Wimbledon, it would
have been harder for them to beat them had big business not taken
away AFC Wimbledon's football club and sent it to Milton Keynes
a long time ago. Coming back to the 39th game, where people now
are thinking about twisting the competition for the sake of more
money, if that money from those ten extra games was all going
to developing football in those nations, I think that the public
would have accepted that as more acceptable, but even then we
would still say competition must be proper competition and rules
must not be bent.
Mr Scudamore: Alan, I cannot let
you talk about perfect competition being bent. Sport is littered
with examples where sport is played and the integrity is not compromised
but it is an unfair system. The UEFA Cup, for example—one
of our biggest critics of this whole scheme, a leading sports
writer for one of our national media, when I asked him the question
when you get to the group stage of the UEFA Cup how many games
in a group of five does a team play, he could not answer the question,
did not know the answer to the question. The fact is they play
four games, two of which they play at home and two of which they
play away. It is not perfect symmetry but it is a perfectly legitimate
and acceptable competition and nobody questions the integrity
of the UEFA Cup. Therefore we have got to get off this idea that
it is bent. It is not bent, Alan, it is basically a departure
and a minor departure, a 39th of a departure from perfect symmetry,
I accept that.
Q57 Mr Hall: It may be critical if
you are going to win or lose and either get relegated or points
at the top of the Premiership.
Mr Scudamore: Nobody gets relegated
or promoted on one game. You do not get promoted or relegated
on the last day, any more than you do on the first day, any more
than you do on the tenth match. Each game contributes a 38th to
your downfall or otherwise, and if we play a 39th, it will be
only a 39th of the outcome of the season; it will not be the entire
outcome of the season.
Q58 Mr Hall: If Derby County play
Manchester United and you go down by three points and you have
played United three times, you are going to be pretty brassed
off.
Mr Scudamore: And you have already
made an assumption that that is a match up that could possibly
happen. We have not even got there in terms of the format so at
least allow us to come through with some suggestions on various
formats and then we will consult widely to see which is deemed
to be the most acceptable.
Q59 Chairman: We must move on. I
think the one thing we are agreed on is that football should run
itself and not be run by politicians, and I am sure that is something
which will be a great relief to you.
Mr Scudamore: Thank you and we
will carry on doing the best we can, even with so-called "mad
ideas".
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