Football's plan to play away is a real own goal

In my car, on Thursday, this conversation came back to me as I was listening to the reports on the radio of the Premier League's plan to play matches overseas. There were the Premier League bosses, all smooth and insistent. There were the journalists who, for the most part, had swallowed the line it was a logical extension of the franchise, and then there were the paying punters, sorry, the fans, who were outraged.

For the life of me I can't credit what the Premier League is playing at. They really are in danger of killing the fatted calf. It's nonsense to say, as they did, that it was possible some clubs would make such a move without the Premier League's blessing. Who would they play? Who cares, because it wouldn't be a league fixture?

It was also palpable rubbish to cite the example of the National Football League. The Americans want to broaden the appeal of their sport, which remains entirely confined to their shores. It rankles with them that they think they've got a world sport and the rest of the world doesn't want to know. It's not money they're after by playing matches at Wembley, but fans.

Soccer already has the fans, so its plan is all about money. The Premier League chiefs are extremely blinkered and very stupid: history is littered with examples of businesses that put profit before service, return ahead of the consumer. They stagger on for a while and then they die.

But this lot believe they can reverse what is the business equivalent of the law of gravity. Richard Scudamore, the chief executive, says the idea is a chance for fans to combine travel and sport, as the Barmy Army does with the England cricket team. "We have to make sure fans want to go there and they are affordable," he said, of the foreign matches.

This is barmy, to borrow the word: he's blurring his market with another, one that has its own users and traditions; he's making it more difficult for his customers to enjoy his product. He wants to be taken seriously as a businessman but I suggest he consults Sir Terry Leahy or Sir Stuart Rose to find out what running a business really entails.

They would tell him that you mess with your brand at your peril, that it should stand for your values. In the Premier League's case they are simplicity, fairness and competitiveness. Start rigging those so that teams no longer play straight home and away against everyone else and you might as well pack up.

By all means, explore methods of strengthening those values. If you admire the US so much, why not consider a US-style draft system so all clubs get a chance of choosing the best players? That, of course, is unlikely to happen because it's not in the interests of the bigger, wealthier clubs. It's not something they need, so they won't sanction it.

The Premier League says it wants to export its product before Italy and Spain beat it to it. Even if the Italians and Spaniards were seriously considering such a scheme, which I doubt, that doesn't make it any more sensible.

It's a strange business, one that doesn't follow the maxim of putting the customer first. Correction, it's not strange but failed.