Manchester United chief executive says 39th Premier League game 'highly unlikely'
The Manchester United chief executive, David Gill, says there is little possibility of the Premier League season being extended to accommodate an overseas fixture despite the popularity of pre-season tours to the far east.
Malaysian supporters booed their own national side in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, such is the fervour surrounding United, while fans have mounted a 24-hour vigil outside the team hotel in Seoul since Sir Alex Ferguson and his side landed in South Korea yesterday.
But Gill said the Premier League is "highly unlikely" to add another game to the schedule. "If you are talking about a 39th game how do you get the symmetry?" he said. "If it was the 38th whose home game would it be? How do you decide who will play where? The Premier League should still look at opportunities and ideas but I cannot see an extra game happening. It would be a step too far."
More likely, in addition to the lucrative pre-season trips, are more mid-season friendlies. United played a January testimonial in Saudi Arabia two years ago, and Manchester City have confirmed they will play UAE in Abu Dhabi on 12 November this year.
There are even rumours that United and Liverpool might accept a lucrative offer to play a match in India some time before Christmas."Those games would naturally be more opportunistic in terms of how we are doing in any particular season," said Gill. "If, for any reason, there is a week or 10-day break in the fixture programme where Alex feels it would be beneficial to take a break, we would look at that. It would all be driven by the football side but we would not rule that out at all."
Gill commented on the schedule of the tour in respect to the Jakarta bombings, and on the decision to pull out of their matches in Indonesia. "Indonesia is a huge country. We have 28 million fans there," he said. "We took a lot of advice, researched it and spoke to the relevant people. No one said don't go. If the authorities had done that, we would not have gone.
"Without doubt we made the right decision to go and, regrettable as it was, we made the right decision to pull out. Security will become a more important factor in future but I don't see a point where we will have to stop touring."
Ferguson reflected Gill's views saying there was no chance the tour would be abandoned despite concerns over the bomb attacks and expressing regret at the unavoidable decision not to visit Indonesia.
"Never there was at any time a suggestion for us to go back home," he said. "We did not have any players wanting to go back home. We're committed to be here for the duration and that's what we came here to do.
"It is very unfortunate and devastating with what happened in Indonesia, and more so because we prepared for it and there was a sell-out of tickets. But there was no way we could go there under the circumstances."
The South Korea international Park Ji-sung is expected to feature for United, having missed out on playing in their previous visit to his homeland through injury. And Ferguson praised the midfielder, while Gill confirmed that the club wish to extend his contract.
"When we were scouting I went to see him and I saw a player with great understanding of space," said Ferguson, who signed Park from PSV Eindhoven in 2005.
"We felt at the time that we needed a player who could penetrate really well and that's why we brought him here to Manchester United. Here he's developed technical and tactical ability and become an important player for us. These are the reasons why I think he's fantastic with us."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/23/manchester-united-premier-league-fixture-korea
