- Richard Scudamore isn't sad to see Luis Suarez leave the Premier League
- Suarez joined Barcelona for £75million from Liverpool in July
- Uruguay international scored 31 league goals for the Reds last season
- Striker endured a controversial three-and-a-half seasons at Anfield
- 27-year-old was found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra in October 2011
- Mercurial talent was also charged for biting Branislav Ivanovic in April 2013
- Scudamore says Suarez's antics reflected badly on the Premier League
.
Premier League Chief Executive Richard
Scudamore has sensationally revealed that he is happy that Luis Suarez
will not be plying his trade in England's top flight next season.
Suarez left Liverpool for Barcelona in a
£75million deal in July having scored 31 league goals last campaign as
he guided the Reds to just two points away from the title.
'I think probably the time had come,' Scudamore said at the official launch of the Premier League.
'He's a
great player and I'm not taking anything away from his talents: he was
voted by both his own players and the media last year the player of the
year and deservedly so.
'He's
great to have but an accident waiting to happen, and if you spend your
time trying to promote what's good about the Premier League, you're
always waiting for the next thing to come along.
'And
this one in the summer, although it was with Uruguay, although it
didn't directly involve the Premier League, clearly it reflected on
Liverpool as one of our great clubs.
'And it reflected on us. He's done his time here, but I can't say I'm sorry to see him go.
'I think it was good business on a number of levels from Liverpool to move Suarez on.'
Despite his footballing brilliance the
Uruguay international courted controversy during his three-and-a-half
seasons on Merseyside.
The
27-year-old was handed an eight-match ban and a £40,000 suspension after
the FA found him guilty of racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice
Evra in October 2011.
In
April 2013, Suarez inexplicably bit Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic during
their league encounter at Anfield which saw him slapped with a 10-match
ban for violent conduct.
The
controversial player will miss Barcelona's opening games of the new
season as well after he was slapped with a four-month ban from all
football activities after he was caught biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini
during the World Cup.
Suarez will learn on Thursday at 2pm whether his four-month ban for biting the Italy defender has been reduced.
The
mercurial Uruguayan has taken his appeal to the Court of Arbitration
for Sport, which has announced it will deliver its verdict on Thursday,
having heard the case last week.
Suarez's
move to the Nou Camp is the latest marquee name to leave the Premier
League for La Liga following in the footsteps of Ballon d'Or winner
Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Luka Modric to name a few.
Scudamore is unfazed though by the pull of Barcelona and Real Madrid luring players from England however.
On
Wednesday the 55-year-old boasted that competition in English football
makes it a more attractive product than the Spanish game, regardless of
the world stars on show in the Primera Division.
Asked how the English game might compete with Spain, Scudamore said on BBC Radio 5 Live: 'In one sense, you don't.
'The way the
economics of Spanish football work, you've got two clubs who, with the
way they sell their television rights, they're allowed to sell their
own, and they clean up and they make more money than any of our clubs
do.
'Our
clubs, even our biggest clubs, have stuck with the collective which
means we have a collective selling of TV rights. It's then distributed,
and therefore every club has a chance to compete.
'Whilst
they do have two super clubs that have always attracted some of the
world's top talent - remember (Zinedine) Zidane didn't come here, Luis
Figo didn't come here - we have the most competitive league.'
Scudamore
added on BBC Radio 5 Live: 'There are more teams being talked about as
able to win our title than you'll ever hear discussed in Spain.
'That makes us more interesting around the world. We have a much bigger global appeal than they do currently.'
Whilst
talking to Breakfast presenter Rachel Burden, Scudamore reiterated his
commitment to improving the standards of women's football in England
after his involvement in leaked derogatory emails about females in May.
'I
apologised at the time and the relationships that I have that are very
very strong didn't need repairing and of course we have sat down and
done quite a lot of explaining and a lot of re-convincing people of our
commitment to a number of things.
'There's
nobody more committed to the expansion of the women's game than us in
terms of expansion and development but as I say I'm not going to go into
any more detail than that at this particular time.'
No comments:
Post a Comment