A discussion about an ‘All-star’ game with the top players from the Premier League (England), Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy) and other top European leagues was discussed at a meeting with other Premier League executives, who want to grow the global audience and bring in more revenue, has been reported by The Times.
The idea of creating a Premier League XI which would play against XIs from La Liga, Serie A, and the Bundesliga are in talks. The reports further added that these games could be played across the world in the summer months or during the winter break to showcase star players to expanding markets.
Sources claim that this idea could be proposed as one of the methods to grow audiences and TV rights across the world. The idea of an All-Star game was recently discussed by the new Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, who put forth a north vs south game of Premier League players.
“Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports,” said Boehly. “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?
“People are talking about more money for the pyramid, in the MLB All-Star game this year we made 200m dollars from a Monday and a Tuesday. So we’re thinking we could do a North versus South All-Star game for the Premier League, for whatever the pyramid needed quite easily.”
But the idea received a lot of criticism from the footballing fraternity, including Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. The German talked about the time off received by athletes in American sports and expressed that if Boley finds a date keeping in mind the tight schedule of all the clubs, he should give him a call.
“He doesn't wait long. When he finds a date for that he can call me,” Klopp added. “He forgets in American sports these players have four-month breaks so they are quite happy they can do a little bit of sport in these breaks. It's completely different in football. Does he want to bring the Harlem Globetrotters as well?”