LONDON (AP) -England's Premier League is revising plans to play an extra round of matches abroad.
Chief executive Richard Scudamore told the Leaders in Football conference Tuesday that the EPL can't patronize its huge global fan base by just playing exhibition games outside of England.
FIFA and the English Football Association opposed the EPL's original plan, announced in February, to add a 39th game to the schedule, to be played outside England starting in January 2011.
"Will it come back in the original form? Probably not," Scudamore said. "Will it come back in another form? Probably likely."
He said at least eight other proposals are on the agenda and the Premier League expects to announce further details early next year.
"The international round is still on the list of ideas that we are considering," Scudamore said. "We understand that it's got huge difficulties, and everyone recognized it had difficulties ... because of the integrity of the competition and fitting it into the calendar."
Scudamore said the league can't afford to neglect foreign fans because of the huge revenue generated from overseas television rights.
"You can't patronize the fans by playing meaningless matches and playing exhibition matches forever," he said. "The audience abroad is not silly. They are sophisticated, and they want really meaningful matches."
The NFL held its first regular-season game outside North America in London last October when the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10. Major League Baseball this year opened its season in Tokyo for the third time, and last weekend the NHL began its season in Europe for the second straight year.
