Red Rebels

548 Premier League Normandy

If in China, as a well-known rich man, he was questioned in this way by someone whose fame and status were not as good as his own, Xiao Yu might get angry and even rush over and slap him hard.

But after so many years in time, Xiao Yu has already learned the British way of life, and he has passed the third grade, and is no longer as aggressive as before. As he becomes more mature and steady, he begins to know how to weigh the pros and cons. .

"Of course, you are right. It is impossible to ask you to sacrifice your own interests to accommodate us, because you also have your own difficulties. But the reason why I want to list so many data is to tell you that the introduction of winter rest It's not just good for us, it's good for you too, because the whole Premier League is one!"

The person who questioned Xiao Yu was Bolton's "Chairman". After receiving Xiao Yu's answer, he nodded and sat down, obviously willing to continue to listen to Xiao Yu's explanation and opinions.

"Do you know how many players from our Premier League will participate in the World Cup in Germany?" Xiao Yu glanced at the crowd with a smile.

Without waiting for their answer, Xiao Yu said it himself, "There are 127 players from 30 football clubs in England. In other words, the players participating in the World Cup are not just players from wealthy teams, but there are also some who have performed well." How many?"

"If we introduce a winter break and give these players a proper rest, and they perform well in the World Cup, the transfer fee will be higher when they are sold. Who will benefit then? It's the club where the players are, it's this There are 30 clubs, including giants, mid- and lower-level teams, and teams from lower leagues.”

There is no doubt what Xiao Yu said. Everyone knows that appearing on a big stage like the World Cup is equivalent to creating value for the club. If you perform well, your worth will be doubled, and if you perform poorly, your worth will shrink.

"I'll give you another statistic. Teams that have a winter break get a rest in January. After the winter break, they are more physically fit, perform better, and can play more exciting games. Not only that, but you can also try to avoid injuries!”

"Our laboratory has done statistics. During the winter break, the weather is cold and the field becomes hard. The probability of players getting injured at least doubles. In addition, during the winter break, players have just gone through a hard and long schedule and are physically tired. Participating in an intensive schedule during the winter break will double the chance of injury."

"But that's not all. There is no rest during the winter break. Once February comes and you travel long distances to participate in national team games, the chance of injury increases three times. But once it comes to the end of the season in March and April, the chance of injury will increase to More than 10 times, that is to say, without the winter break, the second half of the league will completely become an injury camp. I believe everyone understands this!"

As the reputation of the Red Rebels has risen in recent years, the Red Rebels Laboratory has almost become an authority in the field of sports medicine and rehabilitation, which makes everyone present dare not question the data listed by Xiao Yu.

Of course, these club bosses must be very clear that the second half of the league is indeed accompanied by frequent injuries. It is almost difficult for a player to play a complete season. Even if the Red Rebels have a laboratory In order to help, at the same time the club pursues an effective rotation policy, but in fact, there are very few players who can play the entire season intact.

This is why Xiao Yu always emphasizes the thickness of the bench!

Injury and attrition is a very helpless thing for a football club. On the one hand, the club has to pay the players' salaries, and on the other hand, it has to help them recover.

At the same time, it still bears the losses caused by players' absence.

Relatively speaking, introducing a winter break can be said to be a more ideal approach.

La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 have also adopted winter breaks. Among them, the Bundesliga has the longest winter break, reaching one month. However, this is also related to the fact that the Bundesliga has only 18 teams, while other leagues have 20 teams, relatively many games.

In addition, the temperature before and after the winter break in Germany is very low and is always accompanied by snowfall, which is not suitable for football matches. However, England, Spain and Italy do not have this problem. Even during the winter break, games can usually be played as usual. Unless you encounter rare heavy snow weather.

It is precisely because of this difference that the Bundesliga has the longest winter break, while the Premier League does not even have a winter break.

Seeing that everyone present was silent, including Bolton and several other teams with the most opposition, who chose silence, Walsh and David Dunn looked at each other and smiled, and they both saw something was going on.

Xiao Yu also feels that we should take advantage of this opportunity to strike while the iron is hot and completely establish the Premier League's winter break. After all, this is a matter related to the long-term interests of the Premier League. With the winter break, Premier League teams will be better able to cope with European competitions. Grasp and leverage.

"I am also very aware of the concerns of some teams. I understand the worries of these teams about losses. Their operations are very difficult. They do not want to cause losses due to changes, which will drive them to despair!"

Xiao Yu's words resonated with many teams present. They all had such thoughts.

"I have had discussions with many head coaches and club officials, as well as officials from the Football Association. I think we can try to reduce the number of replays in the FA Cup. In this way, as long as we adjust well, It is absolutely possible to have a two-week winter break after the third round of the FA Cup in January!"

It can be said that this is taking into account both tradition and current practice.

Generally speaking, if there is a draw in an FA Cup match, the two sides will switch home and away games on a selected day for the second round. The rematch is usually scheduled for mid-week, so if the rematch is removed, the rematch will be played instead. Arrange *** Premier League matches at the rematch time, so that the winter break can be taken out while ensuring the schedule.

Since British fans generally have the craze and habit of going to stadiums to watch football around Christmas, the Premier League will continue as usual during this period, and will be played after the third round of the FA Cup, which is 1 In the first half of the month, two weeks are set aside for the winter break to allow the players to get a good rest and be in better shape for the second half of the game.

The participants discussed Xiao Yu's proposal a lot. The cancellation of the FA Cup replay had been mentioned one after another before, but they were faced with a problem, that is, once the replay was cancelled, how would the lost team interests be calculated?

For example, the attendance rate of the FA Cup in England is generally good, reaching an average of 70%. For example, Bolton Wanderers, their Reebok Stadium has a capacity of 28,000. Based on 70%, the attendance rate of an FA Cup game is close to 20,000. , and the price of game tickets is generally between 25 and 60 pounds. If the average price is 30 pounds, that is 600,000 pounds in ticket revenue. Counting the operating and commercial income on match days, Bolton can make a profit from an FA Cup game. Earned over £1 million in match day revenue.

Let me ask, how could Bolton give up this big piece of fat?

Again, what about other teams? What about the teams in the lower leagues?

If the rematch is cancelled, how will the teams that have suffered losses due to the loss of the rematch compensate?

Xiao Yu also put forward his own thoughts on this issue at the meeting. He believed that loss compensation is difficult to define, but it can be compensated in another way.

For example, in the FA Cup, teams with lower league levels can get home field advantage, while teams with higher levels must go to away games. This can also be regarded as the obligation of higher-level teams to lower-level league teams.

And if they are teams in the same league, based on the league rankings of both sides last season, the team with the higher rankings will play away games. After all, they have already profited from the rankings last season, and they also have Volunteer to help those teams that are at the bottom.

Responsibility is the word that Xiao Yu mentioned most often when explaining his plan. He repeatedly said that in the same league system, each other has the responsibility to consider each other and think about problems from the other's perspective. This can resolve conflicts between the two parties to the greatest extent and is of great benefit to the long-term development of the league.

For top teams such as the Red Rebels and Manchester United, in order to participate in European competitions, you have to give up the match day income of the FA Cup at home. Relatively speaking, the teams participating in the Champions League are very open-minded. After all, one The money from each group stage game can fill this hole, but the UEFA Cup team is more depressed.

However, it cannot be said that they suffered a loss, it was just that their income was less. After all, they had received more of the broadcasting fee from the Premier League’s *** last season, which made them obligated to fulfill this responsibility and help the previous season. The team with a lower season ***, this is their responsibility!

Without replays, the FA Cup will become a determined game. I believe this will further increase the upset rate of the FA Cup, especially those teams in lower leagues. I believe they will definitely defeat their opponents at home carefully. And once there is a tie even in overtime, it will be a penalty shootout!

The FA Cup has always been a hotbed of unpopularity. I believe that after this change, there may even be an amateur league team defeating Manchester United at home. I believe this will also bring unprecedented changes to the FA Cup.

After Xiao Yu's proposal, everyone agreed that it was feasible. After all, making this change would be beneficial to everyone, and the middle and lower-tier teams could guarantee their interests in this change, so they were happy to do so.

This meeting lasted until midnight, and even dinner was hastily eaten in the hotel. Then everyone began to discuss the changes brought about by this change and offered suggestions.

For example, some club representatives believe that teams should be prohibited from using these two weeks to play commercial games or conduct various commercial activities. Instead, the team should be allowed to rest and recuperate while giving players Have a holiday.

Even later, someone suggested that it be clearly stipulated that players should be given at least one week off, and the team would train in the second week to prepare for the second half of the league, etc.

These regulations have been recorded by the Football Association. They said that many of the suggestions are good and they will fully consider them. However, if you want to adjust the schedule, you still need to obtain the consent of the sponsors and negotiate with the broadcasters.

Although introducing a winter break is good for the Premier League, it does not mean it is good for sponsors and broadcasters. The most typical example is the FA Cup overseas final last season. At that time, everyone applauded, but the sponsors refused This proposal was rejected because they focused their market development in the UK rather than overseas, which ultimately led to the abortion of last year's FA Cup overseas final plan.

This season, the Football Association has fully considered this and coordinated all aspects of relations. Although the official FA Cup competition has not yet started, it has already begun to select the venue for the overseas finals. The current first choices are Asia and the United States. , and the Arab region is also very interested in this event.

The same is true during the winter break.

However, since the winter break is of great importance, after this meeting, the next day, the Football Association and the Premier League began negotiations with the sponsors of the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup, informed them of the decision, and Enlist their input.

The one with the biggest opinions is the FA Cup broadcaster BBC.

As the traditional boss of the British media industry, the BBC is facing huge competitive pressure in the field of football, especially with the rise of the Premier League and the overall marketing of lower-level leagues such as the English Championship. The BBC can only rely on highlight programs and talk shows. Living with the FA Cup, especially the FA Cup.

For this traditional cup competition that has long been known to be declining, the BBC has paid enough attention to it. In the past few years, it has been packaging and promoting this event, especially the packaging of the FA Cup overseas finals. It has spared no effort. But now the Football Association and the Premier League have decided to change.

Although they have been working in football for many years, they know very well that change is a good thing, but they will reduce the number of games and suffer huge losses because of the change, which they cannot allow.

To this end, the Football Association and the Premier League formed a negotiation team and negotiated with them. First of all, they affirmed the BBC's contribution to this event, but they said that the introduction of the winter break is a major event and has great impact on the national team and the league. At the same time, carrying out such changes is also an opportunity for the FA Cup to re-emerge.

Although it used to be a single game to determine the winner, a draw would require a rematch, but now a penalty kick is taken. This undoubtedly makes the game full of greater contingency and creates a breeding ground for upsets. If it is packaged, The FA Cup can definitely be reborn.

At first, the BBC insisted on their own opinion, but after several contacts, they put forward their own requirements, hoping to renew the contract with the FA for the broadcast rights of the FA Cup. After the broadcast rights expired in 2008, they would pay 30 % increase to renew the FA Cup.

You must know that with the strong rise of the Premier League, the broadcast rights of the FA Cup and League Cup have also increased. If the increase is 30% according to the BBC's proposal, the annual FA Cup broadcast fee will reach 11 million pounds. If the results are very good in the FA Cup overseas finals, it can even be basically improved again.

The Football Association and the Premier League considered it again and again and finally decided to agree to the BBC's request. After all, this TV station has indeed made a lot of contributions to the FA Cup in the past few years. There is no reason to abandon them at this time.

Along with the compromises of broadcasters, sponsors have also compromised, which has led the Football Association and the Premier League to start planning for the winter break. If everything goes well, the Premier League's first winter break trial will be held in January 2007. water.

After receiving the news, Ferguson and other officials were very excited. They said excitedly that this was an epic Normandy landing!