Premier League Eyes American Soccer Next

After the Premier League’s historic agreement last week with the Asian Football Federation (AFF) where they agreed to work together at administrative and club-to-club level to forger closer links and share best practices, CONCACAF is next on the Premier League’s list according to a report published this morning by Bloomberg.

“We have a similar dialogue going on with CONCACAF that has not developed at that level but there’s no reason why it won’t happen,” said Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore.

According to Bloomberg, Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF’s general secretary, said he was “open to discussion” and would view any proposal in a “positive light.” “We have as wide a diversity as any continent, with some in need of help and some more sophisticated,” Blazer said in a phone interview. “When it comes to offers of help to develop, we are all ears.”

In Asia, exact details of the partnership between the Premier League and AFF have not been released, but it appears that Premier League clubs would partner with other Asian teams to share best practices among an administrative and coaching level.

“We rely on the Asian confederation to steer us in the right direction,” Scudamore said, admitting that it could be a “long process” to establish such tie-ups.

Based on the latest round of developments the Premier League has been making, they’re being smarter this time by getting the buy-in of the different soccer federations around the world. If Scudamore can get CONCACAF to agree a similar deal to the AFF, then the Premiership will have achieved support from the two biggest EPL fanbases outside of Europe.

Even if the Premier League isn’t able to get a 39th Game concept off the ground, it’ll have the buy-in from North America and Asia to forge closer ties and schedule pre-season or mid-season tournaments.

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