Why greedy clubs are to blame for England's poor World Cup showing, NOT the Premier League

By John Cross

Published 11:12 22/07/10

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Sir Alex Ferguson must be losing his marbles.

Can Fergie not see a certain irony of him blasting the FA for 'handicapping' England's World Cup chances while Manchester United are on a pre-season tour of the US?

All but three Premier League clubs - Newcastle, Blackpool and Wigan - are going abroad on pre-season tours.

United's pre-season trip to the States represents an attempt to crack America. It's a huge commercial venture.

Last year, the Premier League bent over backwards to try and change the start and end date of the season to help accommodate England and help their World Cup campaign. Of course the FA would do anything to help, too.

But the Premier League faced opposition. From who? The clubs. Why? Because it would affect clubs' lucrative pre-season tours.

So to hear managers like Fergie whinge like that is hard to believe. Even his chief executive, David Gill, is an FA board member.

What is one of the reasons why a winter break cannot be squeezed in?

Because clubs don't want to extend the season because they want to go on those lucrative tours.

Birmingham, with new owners from the Far East, are going far and wide to promote the club, make money and please the hierarchy. They're playing 7 games, travelling 16,561 miles including stops in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Everton are covering 22,898 miles, playing 7 games. Blackburn top that with 8 games in 23,475 miles.

Why are they going so far? Money. They can earn millions on these tours.

Liverpool's tour is far more modest. It's about training and low key games in Switzerland and Germany. That's perfect preparation for Roy Hodgson.

Every year, Arsene Wenger resists offers to go far and wide in favour of a low key training base in Austria. It will be interesting to see if US tycoon Stan Kroenke increases his power base at Arsenal whether the club start going to America. Hard to imagine while Wenger remains in charge.

Last year, Chelsea went to the US. They went to Seattle, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Texas.

I went on that trip. It was great fun. But it was exhausting. Every other day we were getting flights. And I wasn't even playing!

It's a crazy way to approach a season. Finance over football.

So next time you hear a manager moaning about tiredness or fatigue, sympathising with the England manager, just look up what that club did in pre-season.

It's definitely NOT the Premier League's fault. They tried to help and their offer was rebuffed by most. It's all down to the clubs and their greed.

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