Todd Boehly wants North vs South Premier League All-Star game as Chelsea owner proposes radical format change
TODD BOEHLY wants a North vs South Premier League All-Star game – and reckons it would boost the football pyramid.
The new Chelsea owner has certainly wasted no time making his mark in English football.
He splashed £260million in his first transfer window then axed Thomas Tuchel 100 days into his era, replacing the Champions League-winning manager with Graham Potter.
And now he has suggested a huge shake-up to the top flight.
Discussing the differences with American sport, Boehly told the SALT conference about relegation into the Championship.
But as well as suggesting a play-off to determine who goes down and who plays in the Premier League, he also believes the league are missing out on easy money by not having an all-star game like the NBA basketball and MLB baseball.
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And Boehly believes setting up the match could help bankroll the lower leagues after seeing its success in the States.
The American said: “Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports and really starts to figure out, ‘Why wouldn’t we do a tournament with the bottom four teams? Why isn’t there an all-star game?’
“People are talking about more money for the pyramid… the MLB all-star game in Los Angeles this year made $200m [£173m] from a Monday and Tuesday.
“You could do a North vs South all-star game in the Premier League and fund whatever the pyramid needed very easily.
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“Everyone likes the idea of more revenue for the league.
“There is a cultural aspect that is real and evolution will come. The nice thing about the Premier League is you own the worldwide rights.”
Should the match get the go-ahead, it would surely drive millions of viewers in England and across the world.
The North’s side could feature a devastating front three of Mo Salah, Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo thanks to Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United.
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Meanwhile, the South would have the pick of the best players from Boehly’s Chelsea as well as Tottenham and Arsenal – such as Raheem Sterling, N’Golo Kante, Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus.
Boehly – who was accused in some reports of wanting to play a 4-4-3 with TWELVE players – also addressed the prospect of buying more clubs.
The City Football Group own 11 teams including Manchester City as well as Girona, Melbourne City and Yokohama Marinos while Red Bull’s portfolio has sides in Leipzig, Salzburg, New York and Sao Paulo.
Boehly added: “We’re not expecting to be the football experts to find the best talent, we’re going to put those people in place.
“We’ve talked about having a multi-club model – I would love to build out the footprint.
Our goal is to make sure we can show pathways for our young superstars to get on to the Chelsea pitch
Todd Boehly
“There are different countries where there are advantages to having a club.
“Red Bull does a good job with Leipzig and Salzburg, both of which are playing in the Champions League – they’ve figured out how to make that work.
“Manchester City have a very big network of clubs.
“One of the challenges Chelsea has right now is having 18, 19, 20-year-old superstars.
“You can loan them out but you put their development in someone else’s hands.
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“Our goal is to make sure we can show pathways for our young superstars to get on to the Chelsea pitch while getting them real game time.
“For me, the way to do that is through another club somewhere in a really competitive league in Europe.”