Scudamore Warns Of Premier League Envy

Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, has warned that the success story of the English top-flight has created jealousy amongst its European counterparts keen to see its power diminished.

Speaking after the announcement of a government, FA and Premier League initiative to donate a further £135m over the next three years to the development of grass roots football in England, Scudamore stated that he had concerns over the threat posed by the Premier League’s rivals.

He said: ‘A real worry is that our European colleagues in other leagues are getting jealous. I am sure the legislators and the regulators in Europe would like to see us levelled down a little bit.’

Scudamore also criticised FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s proposal to impose a ‘6+5’ ruling on club teams allowing no more than five foreign players to start a match.

He commented: ‘Why would we allow legislators in Europe to look at us and say ‘oh they are far too successful, look at that Premier League, look at English football – it is better than ours. What can we do to bring it down’.

‘That’s no recipe for progress and I worry about that more than anything else. They look at our league, look at our players, look at our incomes, the fact we have three teams in the Champions League semi-finals, they look at the FA being the most successful FA anywhere in world football and they look at Wembley Stadium.

‘I am talking about English football generally. There is an envy out there. You cannot deny it. It is there.’

Scudamore said that the strength of the league was reflected by its achievements in Europe, with Manchester United and Chelsea playing in the first all-English Champions League final in Moscow on 21st May.

‘It cannot be bad for the league to be achieving the levels of success our clubs are achieving in Europe. We are not just one single domestic league, we deliberately set the league up to build a ladder to the stars and that ladder is to achieve success in club football in Europe.’