Stan Kroenke plans to move Arsenal games from Emirates – Keith Wyness
Everton’s former chief Keith Wyness has backed the idea of Premier League games being played overseas as Arsenal chief Stan Kroenke now wants matches to be hosted in the United States.
Speaking on the new edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, the 66-year-old – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – revealed he was previously a big supporter of a 39th league game being played outside of the UK.
Finance expert Kieran Maguire told Football Insider last week Arsenal owner Kroenke would want top-flight games to take place in the United States to help maximise ticket sales and earnings.
It comes after La Liga president Javier Tebas confirmed the Spanish league is hopeful of playing competitive fixtures in the United States from the 2025-26 season onwards.
Although Premier League CEO Richard Masters has claimed overseas fixtures are not in his “current plans”, he admitted the “door is ajar” for fixtures in the United States in the future.
Arsenal chief Stan Kroenke’s plan could help grow Premier League
Wyness warned some countries may not want to host Premier League matches as they look to grow their own domestic leagues, but he revealed it’s still a concept he believes can help the league improve its global appeal.
He told Football Insider‘s Insider Track podcast: “If you remember the 39th game discussion, that was happening when I was in the Premier League.
“I was very happy to take an official game overseas. I really believed it was the way to go forward because we would be seeing things like we see in the NFL. It never really got the chance to get off the ground because it was suffocated by the media pretty quickly.
“One thing that was never quite clear and, at the time when I looked at it, Everton had about 1,800 fans that went to every home and away game. With the money from that 39th game, we could have actually afforded to take them all and flown them to somewhere like Los Angeles.
“Everybody forgets that a lot of the money that comes into the Premier League is from overseas rights, so a lot of those fans are paying the wages of a lot of the players.
“At that time, the Premier League was no doubt the preeminent league in the world and still is to a certain extent. But we’re seeing the growth of the MLS, the Saudi Pro League and domestic leagues, so they may not welcome the Premier League games in there as much as they want it to.
“I know China at that time was particularly against revenue being drained out of their domestic economy to go into Premier League clubs. They would rather have put it into their own domestic clubs and sports, which I fully understand.
“It may not be that easy to execute and, if La Liga and other people are doing it, there is a finite amount of money that will go into those sorts of budgets to execute those games. That’s something we’re going to have to keep an eye on.
“I still believe in the concept, whether it’s the 39th game or possibly just keeping it at 38 games and taking one game away. But flying over those die-hard fans might have had an appeal.”
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