There is only so much footballing governance (PiGMOL/FA/PL/UEFA) can do to help without making it obvious that they are being treated differently to other teams on occasions and that penny is starting to drop with them now. But given the gushing praise from BT after last nights latest false dawn it's going to take a very long time for the media to realise that they are no longer the cash cow they once were.
I think there’s a clear distinction between the two though. The media don’t have the same overriding obligation to treat everybody equally and they manifestly don’t. Their entire business model is predicated upon inequality. It would be strange for a commercial media organisation to give as much air time etc.. to Burnley as united. So despite a thin veneer of non-bias, the truth is that certain clubs must get preferential treatment to satisfy subscribers and advertisers.
The PL’s commercial success is founded, as much as anything, on the integrity of the competition, and any meaningful evidence to undermine that would seriously damage the value of the brand, which is why I don’t understand why you (and others) jump with such gusto on the quote from Scudamore at some event in South Africa, read from a prepared script, with the media present, as some sort of silver bullet.
Do you think, as PL chairman, a role he had fulfilled successfully, growing the value of the brand, he was going to intentionally say something to undermine all that work? Do you think he was sending out a coded message to fans of other clubs to let them know what they were up to? Do you think he went off script?
It seems to me he was stating something which was true, but qualifying it by saying that the integrity of the competition was paramount.
Whether he truly believed that is another matter, but to latch into it, and misrepresent it as overwhelming proof of bias in favour of united isn’t fair or accurate and therefore, as I’ve previously stated (fwiw), an ineffective weapon to advance your argument of bias.
He said what he said and the notion it was meant to mean anything other than what I interpret it as, doesn’t stand up to any objective or logical scrutiny.
