A Premier League chief has reportedly suggested promotion and relegation could be scrapped in the coming years amid increased Americanisation of the league.
American influence has taken over the Premier League, with the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and newbies Ipswich Town all boasting owners from the States.
And it’s said the US-based bigwigs are keen to Americanise the Premier League even more, starting with scrapping the ‘alien’ concept of promotion and relegation.
As per The Daily Mirror, it’s claimed one executive believes ‘nothing is off limits’ when it comes to the Premier League, including scrapping relegation and even breaking away from the Football League altogether.
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The source said: “Nothing is off limits in the future. For instance promotion and relegation is alien to them.
“The way things are going with yet more American ownership it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a move to make the Premier League a closed shop and end relegation.
“Or you could avoid the nuclear option by bringing in a Premier League 2 but that would involve the two divisions not being part of the football pyramid.”
But the sentiments of US-based owners aren’t believed to be shared across the Premier League, with the source adding: “The American owners are coming together over a number of issues and are beginning to flex their muscles.
“Some of them don’t really get our traditions. For instance they are used to franchises with various sporting clubs moving to other parts of the USA.
“They have also been staging NFL games over here for some time and baseball is also coming to England.
“They would love to end promotion and relegation. Let’s say I can forsee a few interesting meetings.”
It comes at a time when conversations about moving Premier League fixtures Stateside are already rumoured to be taking place.
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NBC president of acquisitions Jon Miller told The Athletic: “We've had conversations with the Premier League and they've been very open and receptive to listening to me.
“We did the Premier League Summer Series [in pre-season] last year where we had six teams come over; Fulham, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion, and Brentford…
“At some point in the future, I would love to see a couple of Premier League games open the season here in big stadiums on our opening weekend.”
“And I know that’s something that we’ll continue to push for because I think that there’s an American audience here that would like to see regular season games but in the meantime, we’ll continue to work with the Premier League to do everything we can to make the games available to as many people as possible.”
