Six games into the Premier League season, Chelsea parted ways with the manager Thomas Tuchel, the man who brought the second-ever Champions League title to the club. It was not because of a one-off result – losing to Dinamo Zagreb – but as a part of wider sweeping changes aimed to erase the legacy of Roman Abramovich’s era.

Todd Boehly, the new co-owner of the club, has been very ruthless in his role, cutting no slacks on transfer expenditure, nor sowing any hesitancy in sacking managers and those who occupied the upper hierarchy of the club’s managerial operation.

Boehly is here to take the Premier League by storm, but his latest idea, borrowed from American sports, hasn’t gone down well with fans. At the annual SALT conference in New York, Boehly proposed an All-Star exhibition game between Premier League clubs from north and south. 

The All-Star exhibition game is quite popular in NBA, and Boehly wants the Premier League to adopt this idea, as it will bolster their revenue. “Ultimately I hope that 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?” said Boehly. 

“People are talking about more money for the pyramid — MLB [Major League Baseball] did their All-Star Game in L.A. this year, we made $200 million from a Monday and a Tuesday. You could do a north versus south all-star game for the Premier League to fund whatever the pyramid needed very easily,” he added. 

However not many, including Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp, was pleased with this idea, as the football season is already cramped, and players hardly get a two-month rest in a year. Klopp didn’t mince words while responding to this proposal, stating Boehly should first find a date for such games. 

“He doesn’t wait long,” Klopp said after his team beat Ajax 2-1 in the Champions League. “Great. When he finds a date for that, he can call me. He forgets that in the big sports in America, these players have four-month breaks.” 

Lead Image: UCL