Premier League closer than ever to introducing winter break

RICHARD SCUDAMORE says a winter break in the Premier League is closer than ever.

 

BACKED: Big Sam likes the idea of a winter break

 

New England boss Sam Allardyce has led fresh calls for a mid-season rest to boost the country's international hopes.

But any shake-up of the congested fixture list cannot be introduced until 2019, when the new £5bn TV deal ends.

Premier League executive chairman Scudamore says discussions are on-going about a post-Christmas break.

"If it can practically work we are up for listening to it"- Richard Scudamore

"He's (Allardyce) been very consistent and has been calling for it for a lot time, as has every England manager," said Scudamore.

"But there are more prospects for it than I can remember.

"The Football League and the FA, Martin Glenn (chief executive) particularly, wants to see it happen.

"We are having discussions but it's not easy due to the calendar of different competitions. If it can practically work we are up for listening to it.

"We are open minded and keen if we can make it work. We all know what we have to do to create space and something has to give.

"It would have to be decided by the next TV market which is sometime at the end of 2017 and the start of 2018."

England suffered an embarrassing Euro 2016 crashing out at the hands of Iceland.

But Scudamore believes the strain of the Premier League is not to blame.

He said: "We did our own post-Euros discussion and there is nothing we saw that put us off the journey.

"In other words, we know we're producing good players, we saw nothing that said 'Oh, Christ'.

"Whereas, if you go back to England-Croatia (a 3-2 home defeat in 2007 that cost England qualification for Euro 2008), Steve McClaren and the umbrella, we were so angry we went and got Ged (Roddy, the Premier League's director of football development).

"We said, 'We have to change, we have to change', but we saw nothing in the Euros, either from other teams or from ourselves, quite frankly, that said we have to change the journey."

Scudamore was speaking at the launch of Premier League 2, a new Under-23 league introduced to succeed the current Under-21 set-up.

Changes include club's reserve games mirroring first-team fixtures.

 Source:7mSports