The English Premier League’s proposal to add a 39th round of international games to its schedule received a massive body blow on Friday when FIFA President Sepp Blatter told BBC Sport that the plan would “never happen.” Blatter added that if the league decided to pursue the idea anyway, it would harm England’s chances of landing the 2018 World Cup. “This is abuse,” he added. “The rich Premier League is trying to get richer.”
David Davies, the former head of England’s Football Association, admitted the proposal was “unlikely to survive.”He told BBC Radio: “The current plan … has taken a pounding. The basic point is if the national associations in Asia, Africa and North America don’t want these games, then they can put a stop to them.” The FA later said it had “serious reservations” about the proposal.
Meanwhile, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said, “it is too early to speak against [the proposal].” The Frenchman pointed out that international matches were enthusiastically received when he was a manager in Japan in the mid-1990s. “There’s two things I like about it,” he said. “First there is a desire to innovate and be the strongest league in the world and the second thing is to do something for the fans abroad.”