Steve Coppell to Field Reserves in UEFA Cup

Here are just a couple of the interesting stories that caught my eye in the past 24 hours:

If Reading qualifies for the UEFA Cup, Steve Coppell will play reserves in the tournament. And he isn’t joking. Coppell knows where his bread is buttered and the lure of the money that can be made in the Premiership far outweighs the TV rights from the UEFA Cup and the thought of traveling across Eastern Europe on a cold Thursday night to play football.

This raises an interesting point, though. With the massive increase in money that Premiership clubs will earn next season, that’ll mean that the FA Cup and Carling Cup will be even less important for many clubs compared to now. The higher a team finishes in the Premier League, the more money the club will receive and the more likely their matches will be televised on TV (thus ensuring even more revenue generated).

Sports Illustrated, the publication that wrote so many articles showing their hatred of the sport in the eighties, has an interesting article online about the Premiership written by David Conn of The Guardian.