Infantino

By Graham Barnstaple
October 5 2011

UEFA today put out the idea of a new International calendar today, looking to play games from Thursday to Tuesday.

UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino said at a conference today, “The appointments of matches will come from Thursday through to Tuesday. Especially during the weekends, we want to have national team matches played acrossEurope. This is important to promote national team football, [and] football overall”

Personally I am not a big fan of the way International football has changed with the Friday/Tuesday fixtures already in place. Also I am not a big fan of the fact we stop the domestic season for two weeks in the months of September, October and November.

Being old school I preferred when the games were played on a Wednesday and we were back to the domestic stuff on the Saturday, this meant there was a degree of continuity to the domestic season.

Without saying it this would appear to be another way of making more money acrossEurope(or the World) and for UEFA and FIFA to take control of things.

The General Secretary also said, “The main point is to replace friendly matches with double-header fixtures and to harmonise kick-off times as per the UEFA Champions League approach.”

I think it is time UEFA and FIFA took a bit of a step back and tried to come up with a way of supporting the individual Associations and the clubs who are the backbone of the game.

I would also be a bit sad to see the end of the International friendly, how else are we every likely to seeBrazil,Argentinaor African Nations take onScotlandever again.

Who will ever forget one of Maradona’s earliest Internationals at Hampden in a friendly at Hampden when he destroyedScotlandin a friendly on his own.