So if you have been paying attention, the big story is that the premiership have struck an “agreement in principle” with all 20 league teams to make the exciting league a global spectacle.

The matches would be played at five venues around the world over a single weekend in January 2011. Each city would host one game on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Johannesburg is currently being touted as an option to be a host city. Something I had to silently repeat to myself when I heard it for the first time. The opportunity to watch my team, my team in my hometown as an actual league fixture!! Phenominal!

The proposal will take at least a year to finalise but Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore is already excited by the globalisation of the British game, which could give armchair fans the chance to watch 10 league games back-to-back from Saturday morning to Sunday night.

The prospect is amazing and the more I thought about the more it started to seem like a really tricky task. While this was happening the whole prospect started to seem a little bit of a sacrifcice, Global exposure for the age old formula if you will. Please dont get me wrong, I am in love with my country and football is my life but this is going to be a very very tricky task indeed.

Scuddamore said “This proposal has captured the imagination of the 20 clubs. There is a difference between symmetry and integrity. What we currently have is a perfectly symmetrical league. That is not the same thing as integrity.”

“What this proposition does, I admit, it alters by one 39th the perfect symmetry that currently exists.”

Snag number one: how do you find symmetry in the number 39? The extra game means that switching from the formula of everone playing eachother twice, there will now be a third game against a single team. this will ultimately effect the Champion/Relegation battle in a major way.

Snag number two: As much as their will be a crazy amount of support at the big games, how many people will pay to watch the low placing teams? How many South Africans out there that can name the Derby County starting line up?

The cities would be spread geographically in different time zones to allow British television viewers the possibility of watching all 10 games from Saturday morning onwards. “There will be no club influence that will determine which host city they go to,” said Scudamore, who recognised that there would be major issues to address with an already crowded calendar and sanctioning bodies.

Snag number three: The league has been setup so that all teams play each other at the same time on the last day. This is to avoid any shady teams taking advantage of knowing the result of a key game. This means that games will be played at different times worldwide to accommodate the British viewers.

So after these snags one hopes that their is a team of very clever gentleman out there devising a plan to make this format work out in a way that can eliminate the obstacles because I am still uncertain as to whether this could possibly one the great moves of world football!

Tags: 2011, Enlglish premier league, international, johannesburg