What could the Premier League All-Star game look like and will we ever see it?

Todd Bohly hasn’t been the owner of Chelsea for long, but he has managed to attract attention several times. For example, when he spent over £270 million on reinforcements in the summer, or when he very unexpectedly sacked Thomas Tuchel. The last time he did it was when he suggested that the Premier League should hold an All-Star game, following the example of American sports. What might such a game look like and will we ever see it?

So far, Boehly’s proposal has been met with more criticism from experts and fans alike. The most common argument is that players already have to play a large number of games during the season and it makes no sense to force them to play another one in which almost nothing is at stake. Moreover, nobody would want to lose a player to injury in such a game.

However, there have been some positive reactions and arguments for organizing the All-Star game. Of course, it’s all about money.

This is the main argument of Boehly himself, after all, similar events in the USA make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. It is hard to say what the earnings would be in the case of the Premier League, but the interest in such an event would certainly be great.

So what would an All-Star game in the English top flight look like? Boehly talked about a north versus south system, which splits the Premier League teams exactly in half, 10 and 10. The north is made up of teams from Liverpool, Manchester, the Midlands and Leeds, with Newcastle somewhat further afield. The backbone of the southern section are teams from London, supplemented by a trio from the south coast of England.

In that case, the teams might look like this. Given Manchester City’s form, it’s no surprise that the North’s selection is made up largely of their players. However, it is possible that a maximum of, say, 3 representatives from each team could be selected.

It would also be interesting to see whether the selection of players would be decided by experts or fans. In the latter case, we would probably witness very strange decisions, as Newcastle fans have already proved. They dominated the Twitter poll and chose Callum Wilson over Erling Haaland as the North’s striker.

Despite the initial criticism, such an All-Star game would probably attract a lot of attention and there would be no shortage of viewership. There have also been suggestions that this game could replace, for example, the Community Shied, a match between the winner of the Premier League and the FA Cup.

However, so far this is only Beohly’s suggestion and whether it will become a reality is still unclear. But who knows, maybe next season we’ll already witness heated debates about which player should or shouldn’t attend the All-Star game. Money comes first, after all.

Source: ESPN, Premier League