Ecclestone unimpressed with plans - Sport in brief - Evening Standard
       

Ecclestone unimpressed with plans

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone believes the Premier League will never be able to sell the likes of Wigan to a global market - and has offered to organise a 'big four' mini-tournament.

The QPR co-owner has poured scorn on the plan to stage an extra round of league matches in cities around the world and does not believe there would be sufficient interest to sustain the proposal.

"The current idea the Premier League is putting forward isn't very good," he told the Daily Mirror.

"They probably wouldn't find it very easy to convince someone in Singapore to have Wigan playing somebody over there. I can't see a promoter going for that."

Instead, Ecclestone believes the most lucrative option would be to stage a separate tournament, unrelated to the Barclays Premier League, involving Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United.

He added: "If somebody said to me today 'what would you do?', I'd have the top four clubs who are known worldwide and I'd want them playing six matches against each other in a mini-league.

"I'd run it completely separately and export it to whoever wanted to buy it. Nothing to do with anything. Not sharing the money with any of the rest of the league or anything like that.

"I would be very happy to enter into a contract with those four clubs to run in six events if I could put the events where I wanted to put them."

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