Cancelling Premier League would send ‘terrible message’, warns Ecclestone

Saturday is scheduled as the opening day of the new season but games are in doubt due to the rioting across England, with trouble spreading across the country after starting in London.

England’s friendly with Holland and several Carling Cup matches have been called off in the wake of the violence, but Ecclestone believes it would be the wrong decision to cancel this weekend’s fixtures.

Asked about the impact of such a decision, he said: “I tell you what, it gives a terrible message to the rest of the world.

“The Premier League is watched all over the world and wherever I travel and turn on (the TV) I see Manchester United playing someone.

“It is important and it is watched worldwide so it gives a very bad message (about) England and we’re about to have the Olympic Games so it is not a good message to give.

“Can you imagine if these sort of things happened when the Games were being staged? It would be terrible.”

QPR v Bolton is one of three London-based top-flight fixtures scheduled to take place this weekend.

Fulham are due to host Aston Villa and Everton travel to Tottenham, where the trouble first erupted on Saturday after a peaceful protest against the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan turned violent.

The violence has since spread to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol while there were fears other cities could experience lawlessness in a fourth night of rioting last night.

The Premier League and the Football League issued a joint statement saying they would take a decision today on whether to call off this weekend’s games.

The latest game to fall victim to the troubles was last night’s Carling Cup tie between Bristol Rovers and Watford at the Memorial Stadium, which was called off on police request.

With police resources already stretched to the limit, Football League chairman Greg Clarke has warned matches will be postponed this weekend if officers are needed elsewhere

“The police have to make these calls,” he said. “If they feel they have more important things to do than send officers to football grounds, we will support that decision. Our priority is to make sure the police are out there dealing with unrest on the streets. We want to keep our games going ahead but that is a secondary priority.

“We have to support the police and the government in making the streets safe, then after that we can think about ‘let’s get our football games going ahead’.

“If they need to move police away from football games, we will cancel those football games.”

Clarke expects any disruption to the league programme to be short-lived, adding: “We don’t believe the situation will go on much longer, history tells us these things tend to peter out and we will make sure football games can go ahead as and when”

In Liverpool, managers from both Premier League clubs last night appealed for calm.

Kenny Dalglish, who leads Liverpool into a league campaign for the first time since 1990, used the club’s official website to ask for Liverpudlians to “pull together”.

“The city has made incredible progress over the past few years and no-one wants to see our restored reputation damaged by what we have witnessed over the last couple of days. For everyone’s sake let’s stop this now and pull together for the benefit of the whole community,” he said.

His words were echoed by Everton manager David Moyes: “There can be no justification for the shocking display of behaviour that has been witnessed throughout the city of Liverpool and the rest of the country over the past few days.

“The mindless actions by small groups of individuals cannot be condoned and along with the rest of the Merseyside community, everyone at Everton Football Club gives its full support to the police and local authorities in bringing an end to the troubles.”