Mr EPL talks the talk

THE English Premier League has long been the most talked about league in the world. And now the conversation has just picked up a notch: ‘Mr EPL’ is back where he belongs – in Asia, talking to us and letting us talk to him.

A seven-year absence was forgotten at the sight of that familiar face and the sound of that familiar voice. Indeed, it was like finding an old friend had popped back unexpectedly – and was once again holding court from his favourite chair in the living room.

John Dykes is back with something of a bang – three times a week on Fox Sports that the channel hopes will become ‘the premier destination in the region for English football analysis and discussion’.

But for once a press release introducing him was guilty of understatement: it said he was ‘no stranger to football fans of this region’. ‘No stranger’? At least the bio rightfully described him as ‘Mr EPL’.

If watching him on the box is like renewing an acquaintance, meeting him is like walking into the studio – he’s just as you see on the screen; friendly, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and oozing confidence this new venture will work.

But this was the first time I’d met him so I opted for a lollipop, if pertinent, question with which to kick off: what was it that brought you back?

Just how easy a volley it was, he immediately let me know: “When I spoke to another journalist in Singapore last week, he phrased it rather more bluntly,” he responded.

“‘Why on earth would you leave the very heart of it all to come out here?’ he asked. It cut to the chase brilliantly.”

So why did he? “I had no resonance, no presence, nothing that really tied me to the UK apart from the fact that I’d pop into the studio for the weekend and do matches but those matches would only be broadcast overseas.” Like the opera singer heard by millions but performing to an empty arena, he was at the heart of something but could not feel the pulse.

“So after a while,” he continues, I felt a little detached from it and felt I really wanted to re-engage with the people who were actually watching a show and talk to them on a daily basis.

“I was in an absolute vacuum so that, allied to the fact that I love Asia, I’ve always liked the way things work in Asia and like the environment, I started talking to Fox.”

To sum up, he says: “Wanted to work here, great project and I can see it working. And of course the family is a massive part of it. My wife is fabulously adaptable. She’s a Singaporean, went to university in England and our two daughters were born in Singapore. I had 13 years in Hongkong, 13 or 14 years in Singapore. It’s where I particularly feel very comfortable.

“What interests me is engaging with an audience that I’m very aware now, is very football literate, very opinionated, very well versed in this whole modern industry of debating the game whether it’s on forums, on podcasts, or what have you. Fox felt there was a gap in the market and this needed to be addressed so here we are.

“In Malaysia, I think Astro do a pretty good job of wrapping stuff around the Premier League but in other parts of Asia that is not the case. So I think there’s an audience out there that deserves just what we’re hoping to give to them.

“Which is an agenda-setting, provocative look at the issues of the day in football specifically geared to engineering that feedback, building a community and then taking that to wherever it goes.

“So the idea is, we’ve got three nights a week, a traditional football show in a half hour slot, but as you’ll have seen, we Facebook live it, we push it to our own digital dimension, we do it through social media – and it’s fabulous.

“So we’re already building up this network of people. As far as we can see, just anecdotally based on the amount of feedback that comes into the show, it’s working.

“If we’re on air, and within minutes of going on air, I’ve got 20 or 30 people wanting to have their say, we can address that on the show, then that to me is kind of satisfying. And coming along with what I’m doing, we’ve got a revamped website launching, we’ve got a huge social presence we’re building so I think it’s all part of a broader picture in which Fox is positioning itself in this market place as the authority on English football.”

All this was being delivered with that straight-talking clarity which endeared him to his audience on either side of the millennium. He is quite simply eloquence in overdrive, never missing a beat, but then he is combining two passions: football and broadcasting.

His positivity about the project was matched by his bullishness about the future of football in general and was in sharp contrast to the level of disillusionment I’d experienced on a recent trip back to the UK.

Several hard-core fans had told me their clubs were ‘losing their soul’ and they felt neglected. One season-ticket holder of 20 years moaned: “Fans from abroad spend more in the club shop than we do and it seems the club are favouring the big spenders over those of us who have been going for years.” Another mentioned the spiralling transfer fees and wages at a time of austerity.

When I raise these concerns, this is how he answered: “I don’t really sense that. I think what happens is having spent seven years in the UK, I get the sense there that things are politicised to a degree that is disproportionate in my opinion. It’s very easy to say that football is getting so much but what about the nurses?

“But it’s not necessarily a valid argument. If we consider football to be an entertainment – maybe not as overtly as Hollywood or the music industry but it is pretty much close to it the way it’s evolved into a brilliantly packaged media entity.

“People talk about sustainability, but as long as the revenues are as good as they are, if every single club takes away over £150m a year from the rights deal. If we add to it and the commercial exploitation they do, £700m a year turnover – close to £1 bn – even if they allow salaries to their turnover to be 70 or