Welcome to the Total Soccer Show and our latest listener questions episode.

My name is Ryan Bailey and joining me today is a man who ran the risk of being cancelled on Twitter this week

by admitting he wouldn't mind a round of Premier League fixtures being played abroad.

Oh, Graham Rutherman. Oh no, I feel like this is going to end badly for me. They're going to come after me with the pitchforks and the fire. This will be the end of Graham Rutherford. I fear Ryan, yeah. Well, okay. There's worse ways to go out, Graham, I could say. But I will But I was quite against this idea, playing a round of Premier League pictures abroad, Graham.

You know, it's tradition.

How dare they take a home game away from one of these teams?

And I could see lots of problematic issues with it.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, why not?

Yeah.

I mean, there are absolutely issues with it.

I have concerns over the kind of the parity of the league,

how our team is going to give away one home game

and still have that structural and competitive integrity of the league season.

I do have concerns over that.

I would also have concerns over one game leading to two

games, leading to three games to, oh, all of a sudden, Burnley play their home games in Jacksonville.

I would have concerns over that. But if it was safeguarded as just kind of one round of fixtures per season,

yeah, I don't really have much of an issue with that. If it was competitive in terms of like maintaining the integrity of the season, I don't have much of an issue with that. There are fans around the world. Let's give them some proper football to watch. I was taken out of the room there by the idea of Burnley and Jacksonville, two of the most different places I think I've ever visited, Graham. Goodness me. Yeah, well, an experiment. Let's see how that goes. Well, also here with us today, Graham, is a man who hasn't expressed his view on playing Premier League games abroad, but I'm hoping he's going to do that right now. Joe Lowry. Whatever it takes to get Burnley doing a reverse Jacksonville Jaguars, I am all for that. So that is my opinion. Let's make it happen, folks. All right, Joe, what exactly do you mean by reverse Jacksonville Jaguars? Like playing backwards in Florida? No, the Jaguars just, when the NFL is putting games abroad over in England, it felt to me like it was always the Jaguars going to play in Wembley or wherever they're playing. Whether that's because of the ownership, having ties in England, or I don't know exactly what all the details were. But the Jaguars did play a lot of games abroad, and they're also just not very good. So I think it works on a couple of different levels, Ryan. Well, the NFL does play a lot of games abroad as well, Joe. I think the issue is it's taking Maybe taking a game away from a Premier League team or two, this would be. Maybe the idea of Burnley playing, say, Aston Villa in Jacksonville, maybe that's not the biggest draw in the world as well. What would you think, Joe, about maybe the League Cup or the charity shield or one of those less important games going abroad as like a tester first? What do you think about that? I mean, it's good for the American fans if more games are in the States, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't have any issues with that. I feel like I'm not the right person to answer this question. Ryan, I think you are probably the better person to answer this question because I don't have the emotional ties to English shocker to really feel for the integrity of the game. Because me, yeah, why not, right? I understand, okay, maybe it's just a financial, like a money grab here. And that's probably true no matter how you spin it. But I'd love to see the Community Shield in, well, maybe not in Florida, but somewhere in the United States, right? I'd like to see more games, La Liga's throwing out this idea, a bunch in the past of having games in the US. I think there's opportunities to do that. And from my perspective, it would be fun. From your perspective, though, Ryan, I can imagine it might not line up quite with mine. Wimbledon basically did this already anyway by playing their games in a foreign land. Milton Keynes. all right, Graham. You had to ruin the bunch, didn't you?

Thank you very much. By the way, no Taylor Rockwell here today. He's actually at Tottenham Hotspur this week. They already have a wise beardy man there, and they thought if they got another one just like him, the team might actually get some sort of identity. I'm not sure if that's working out. But I didn't think that the new no Rockwell partnership.

New Rock?

What do we think?

Like, Lee, the team might actually get some sort of identity. I'm not sure if that's working out. But I do think the Nuno-Rocwell partnership. New Rock? What do we think? Like Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach, they're sustaining their success, aren't they? Right? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how many, if those references kind of age us quite a bit. I don't know how much Joe is... They do. It knows about what we're talking about here. But yeah, sure. New Rock. Let's go for it. Joe, you've heard of Lit Biscuit, right? Yes, I have, but mostly just because I've done this show with you for about a year now. So that's most of the tie-in. Oh, I've never felt more old, Joseph. Oh, thank you very much.

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