Yanks a bunch.
Words: Tom Reed
Ok, ok we get it, the Americans love English football, they are not coming from a bad place in how much they heart the game over here, apart from hailing from the USA.
I jest of course, but let’s proceed.
They are just a bit over-keen, in more ways than one, with nearly half of Premier League clubs owned or part-owned by American investors and more reportedly on the way.
New Chelsea owner Todd Boehly had barely had his feet under the Blues’ boardroom table for six months before chucking up a couple of zany ideas to revolutionise the English game.
“Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports, and really starts to figure out, why don’t we do a tournament with the bottom four sports teams, why isn’t there an All-Star game?” asked LA Dodgers co-owner Boehly.
Because that’s exactly what a game going through a fan-led review to properly redistribute its funding is in need of.
The first question is whether you can entirely take the suggestions of anyone called Todd seriously and Boehly pronouncing it “tourmanent” instead of tournament is a red flag on American investors needing to take a minute.
Following on from Todd’s tourmanent we had the news that Premier League clubs are having issues with the FA Community Shield of all things, a literal one-off game in aid of community causes and charities.
According to the Times, one idea recently put forward is staging the traditional curtain-raiser match between the Premier League and FA Cup winners, first held in 1908, in the “United States or China to promote the Premier League globally.”
The obvious thing that comes to mind when you see packed Man Utd fan parks in India is that Premier League needs more marketing on a world level.
There’s no indication that it’s American owners making the suggestion to take the Community Shield to China but the likes of Boehly have opened the door to all sorts of blue sky thinking bollocks.
Such liberty taking is the equivalent of turning up to a house party and getting all nervous and eating all the Twiglets, getting pissed on three pints and throwing up in a plant pot by 9pm.
What it needs is for English owners to go over the Atlantic, buy up a raft of historic clubs and start throwing ideas around.
What about putting an inflatable wall around the NFL pitches so that the players just bounce off it and the balls stay in play a bit more?
The baseball World Series to become the Stickball Shield sponsored by Savlon, beer and nachos replaced by tepid Bovril and meat pies.
Not that all American involvement is quite so grating, Ryan Reynolds and the other fella at Wrexham seem to be treading a fine line and keeping the Racecourse Ground faithful, who like all lower league fans love a moan, on board with the vision.
Of course a shit load of money is going to keep most fans sweet but they are investing in a new home end and some massive floodlights which seems a good a spend of Deadpool money as any.
You’ll inevitably get the US influencers who have seen "‘Welcome to Wrexham’ and who will be going over to North Wales to stand there looking bemused at the quality of fayre on offer.
Now, that ain't a bad start to fitting in as a Wrexham fan, where the faithful have been through the mill over the years but the absolute best thing you can do to blend in to the UK football scene is to not watch the game at all. Just get slaughtered on strange spirits that German grannies drink and fall asleep during the game or preferably on the way.
Apart from a whinge about non-league streaming, Reynolds doesn't seemed to bothered about changing too much about domestic football here. He's spent enough time avoiding idiots at Hollywood parties to know how to melt into the background.
But Boehly et al do seem intent on shaking up the English game and laying it on thick.
It's the equivalent of us taking the brilliant painting by American artist Cassius Coolidge of the dogs playing poker and painting over it with a Turner-esque scene of the dogs on a yacht in the Channel at dusk.
Just let the fucking dogs play poker.
That said, we shouldn’t be too anti-yank as they might well be a step-up from the English dorks like Alan Sugar and Martin Edwards who were knocking around when the Premier League was formed in ‘92.
It might help if the Americans put money into something for everyday fans who haven’t had much done for them apart from the building of mega stadia they don’t need with expensive pints of craft ale featuring names like Anders Limpar’s Citrus Crutch Juice, designed to embarrass them to order.
Finding a way to subsidise away travel for fans would be a smart move as long as it isn’t funded by moving the FA Cup final to Guam or whatever mad scheme may or may not be in the pipeline.
There obviously has to be a balance between the number of clubs owned by Americans and that number looks to be in increasing further with Bill Foley, the owner of NHL side the Vegas Golden Knights no less, looking to take over Bournemouth.
Apart from the terrifying prospect of the pronunciation of Bourne…Mouth we've already had Axel Foley and Mick Foley, so give it a rest lads.
