Faraway hills greener but only for self-interest

SOCCER ANGLES:The idea of the 39th Game has reared its head again through Sam Allardyce, but who would really benefit from such an enterprise, writes MICHAEL WALKER

SOMETIMES YOU wonder. Take Sam Allardyce, for instance.

It is Big Sam’s advice that we who follow English football, and have done for decades – because we like it – should just about get over ourselves and realise that English football on its own is not enough.

Now you may have thought that that was one of the reasons why European club football was considered in the first place, and why it took off, but Allardyce is going beyond the confines of continent. It simply isn’t big enough for Big Sam.

No, he’s been to a place called Asia where apparently he’s seen millions waiting up all night to catch something like Bolton versus Wigan live rather than record it and never watch it like the rest of us.

That, says Allardyce, is why the 39th Game, the dreaded 39th Game, should be back on the agenda. In fact, top of it.

Game 39, you may recall, was the Premier League’s idea to stage an extra league game abroad to swell the already considerable appeal of English football and to thereby increase the foreign sales of television rights.

The obvious imbalance it would cause in the fixture list is one significant reason why the idea floundered.

This weekend, for example, is a good illustration of why that was so: Alex Ferguson is already concerned about Liverpool’s attitude against Chelsea tomorrow, and that game is at Anfield. Imagine if it were in Hong Kong and Chelsea had just had four more days rest than Liverpool.

But those foreign sales are not be sniffed at, which is why Game 39 still breathes quietly.

As Allardyce argues, those foreign rights help Premier League clubs maintain budgets that enable them to stay ahead of La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga – in economic terms.

With those budgets come the likes of Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba. Without those budgets, the argument goes, those players would be off elsewhere, the Premier League’s appeal would be diminished and that in turn would lead to further budget constraints.

Some could say that was scaremongering but as Allardyce said on Thursday: “We should ask ourselves a few questions about what’s important.

“Do we like working in the Premier League? The answer is Yes. It’s the top league in the world with the best entertainment.

“Would we like to keep the product safe? Yes. Do we like the money it brings in? Yes. Would we like to protect that? Yes.

“Well, if we take it to the people across the world they are going to want more of it and instead of subscriptions declining, they are going to increase.”

You cannot help but revisit the line where Allardyce asks if we like the money in the Premier League. His answer is “yes” and you can understand why: he is one of the richest men in his part of Lancashire due to the money sloshing around in the Premier League.

Allardyce is now part of a world where “five grand a week” is almost taken as some sort of insult. It is no wonder he likes the status quo and wants to preserve it.

But what about Blackburn Rovers fans, among others? How disappointed would they and we be were money within the league to drop and we are informed that, actually, Torres or Drogba are not going to be sold but that an Assou-Ekotto or a Diouf might have to take a 10 per cent cut in his salary? We would not blink. That is because we know that the Premier League has made a lot of ordinary players – and managers – extraordinarily wealthy.

Robbie Savage’s Porsche, that says quite a lot to us.

Torres or Drogba, yes, we think their salaries are ridiculous but it is when we hear that Lucas Neill was earning an alleged €86,000 per week at West Ham that we begin to foam at the mouth.

Neill brings us neatly back to the best league in the world argument. It doesn’t feel quite so strong this spring.

The Champions League is one barometer but so are the ongoing empty seats, so is the predictability of the Premier League.

But for Liverpool’s incompetence, as opposed to a surge of quality from challengers, it would again be the same top four heading for the Champions League and its money pot yet again.

As it is, there’s three of the regulars. We haven’t got time to get onto the financial plight of Portsmouth and Hull and the 10s of millions of collective debt that so enrages Uefa.

How would staging a 39th game abroad affect all that? It wouldn’t. Player wages are the greatest expense within the Premier League and it would remain that way.

Until that is addressed, best not talk about making a few quid down Shanghai way.

Inter not all about keeping it tight

WE HAVE the cult of Jose Mourinho and we have the cult of Barcelona. Never the twain shall meet. If you admire one, you can't admire the other. If you praise one, you damn the other.

But the reality is that you can enjoy both. Barcelona have thrilled us at moments of this season just as they have done so over the past three to four years. They have an approach to the game that makes us smile when it comes off.

They get things wrong, of course. There is inequality in La Liga in terms of television rights (them again) and Barca are not in favour of changing that situation. Hence you have the disparity in the league table between Barca, Real Madrid and the rest.

They got some things wrong against Mourinho's Inter on Wednesday night too. What were those long-range shots, what was Sergio Busquets thinking? But they got it right when Gerard Pique scored that superb goal and it was not Barca but the linesman who got the disallowed equaliser wrong. There were two poor refereeing decisions in the first leg, too. Both harmed Barca. So the cult of Mourinho needs some context as well.

Having had the good fortune to be at the Milan derby in January when Inter had Wesley Sneijder sent off after half an hour, then lost another man in injury-time, but still won, it is hard not be impressed by the endeavour Mourinho has injected into the non-Italians.

There were some great moments of defending on Wednesday, moreover, from Lucio, Esteban Cambiasso and the eternal Javier Zanetti. In his two seasons, Mourinho has also added creativity to Inter and if this is to be their Champions League year, the likes of Sneijder will have to do more than track back. But it won't mean Barcelona are over.