Not every idea from the US stinks but this one does

IT is easy to laugh at Todd Boehly’s big ideas for English football, but first be aware of how previous innovations were received. The introduction of a second substitute, initially proposed in 1986, was rejected on the grounds it would constitute another meal, another appearance fee and an extra hotel room on away trips.

Later, Arsenal vice- chairman David Dein arrived with the idea of putting players’ names on shirts. One club owner opposed it claiming his laundry room wasn’t big enough to cope. As it was, a player could take any shirt with a number on the back. Once they were individually assigned that wouldn’t be possible.

It was only in 1993 when Dein walked in with Manchester United, Blackburn and Arsenal shirts he had specially made, reading GIGGS 11, SHEARER 9 and ADAMS 6, that his fellow directors saw the potential.

Dein had an eye on shirt sales, obviously, but also on building the profile of individuals on television overseas. Now players are valued for the merchandise they shift and their fame around the globe. And where did Dein get that idea from? America. So it’s not all bad.

There was a time when putting extra cash registers in the club shop to cut queues on match days was seen as commercial genius. Kick-off times aside — and much of the anger there is to do with inadequate public transport — modern football is fan friendlier. And the germs of most of those schemes have come from across the Atlantic.

Usually introduced by men steeped in English football, mind. Dein was an Arsenal regular from school age. By contrast, Boehly has been here a metaphorical five minutes and he already thinks he knows what’s best. A North versus South all-star game to raise money for the lower leagues, as happens in America? Play-offs to decide relegation? These are not ideas whose time has come.

Even our own promotion playoffs, hugely successful in a commercial sense, still don’t sit right with fair competition. Each Championship team plays 46 games through a season to decide who comes first, second and third. Quite why the third best team is then pitched into a further

contest with the club in sixth before facing another match against the team in fourth or fifth remains a mystery.

The only justification is that everyone is aware of the rules before they start. But it really is nonsense. And the bottom three go down. We know that. Why should fourth from bottom then get dragged into the drama?

One imagines that Boehly (right) isn’t proposing that, were Chelsea to win the league across 38 hardfought matches, they should play- off against Europa League qualifiers.

Then again, Boehly’s background is a sport — Major League Baseball — where 162 matches only get a franchise to stage two. Potentially, there are another 22 games after that. Less isn’t more in American sport.

And the All- Star Game isn’t just a glorified Soccer Aid either. It has wider significance. From 1973 until this season, baseball’s two leagues, National and American, played by different rules. In the National League, the pitcher had to bat. In the American League, he was replaced at bat by a Designated Hitter.

And from 2003 to 2016, to add extra spice, when the Leagues contested the All- Star Game, whoever came out on top got homefield advantage at the World Series, its champion playing at home and to their rules in four of the seven games.

EQUALLY, two of the biggest American sports, baseball and NFL, don’t really enjoy significant international competition. So the All- Star Game is the one time players from the many franchises come together in a scratch team and have to make it work.

We already have that here. It’s called international football. Throughout the season, there are regular gatherings in which players from arch-rivals join together and do the best they can.

John Stones and Harry Maguire; Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva. Seeing if Liverpool and Manchester united players, or those of Manchester City and Chelsea, can function as a team is not a step into the unknown in football.

Next week, Gareth Southgate will try just that, when England face Italy. Also, with such a cosmopolitan league, we are even used to seeing team-mates in opposition — Mason Mount and Reece James against Jorginho, for instance.

What is considered an honour in America — like being selected for the British and Irish Lions, another all- star team — would be humdrum to most English eyes. And this is before we even consider scheduling, release and squad composition.

Pick your North XI right now. It’s Manchester City. Manchester City with a small sprinkling of Liverpool. So why would anyone from the Midlands, North East or yorkshire feel kinship?

Equally, if we went down the MLB route with every club represented, it means leaving out some of the best players. If Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland take up City’s allocation, what of Phil Foden, Rodri, Joao Cancelo, Silva and Ederson? Many of the game’s biggest stars would be excluded.

More amusing, but just as unlikely to occur, would be a recreation of the State of Origin game between queensland and New South Wales that exists in Australia’s rugby league. In those states it is the sporting event of the year. Players do not represent their clubs but the state in which they were born or first entered the game.

Now imagine a North v South football match, with Nick Pope or Jadon Sancho being called back to the South, passing Ben Davies on the other side of the motorway. And yes, we know where Neath and Swansea are on the map, but you’d have to afford the Celtic nations affinity with the North, surely?

What fun. But utterly impractical. For a start, it is a parochial match, excluding the foreign players that comprise many of the biggest names in our league. Equally, identifying with two defined states, queensland and New South Wales, is easier than with vague concepts of north and south, an arbitrary line drawn below Birmingham. Who gets behind that? The ECB are already discovering with The Hundred that manufactured loyalties do not last.

So, thanks but no thanks on that one, Todd. But do keep thinking of us, if not for us. Better this than a shady little cabal that keeps its plans to itself and tries to ruin football by forming a Super League on the sly.

And Chelsea’s last owner didn’t utter a word in close to 20 years. His every last judgment was a puzzle. So we can hardly complain if his successor likes to talk out loud.

Because not every idea from America stinks. The one where commercial revenue gained outside a franchise’s immediate locality is pooled and shared — so that a New york yankees baseball cap bought in Arizona is split 30 ways? That’s interesting.

And the fillip American sport gives its weaker clubs by allowing them a jump in the post- season transfer market. That could make a competitive difference, too.

Is there anything we could do here, to even out the competition? These are concepts worth exploring. you will notice, however, that the new owner of Chelsea wasn’t much interested in that kind of blue-sky thinking.