Feature: The Goods and Bads of Pre-season Tours

As all the teams are already back home preparing for the Leagues to begin, I think this is just the right time to talk about pre-season tours. Obviously, it is the commercialization of football that leads to all these pre-season tours. Players now, have to travel across continents to ‘prepare’ for the new season. These tours do in a way, benefit the clubs, mostly in terms of popularity, finance, but when it comes to preparing the club for a new season, well, not so much, in my opinion. Let’s break it down here:

1. Boost in Popularity 
This applies to both home team and the guest team. No matter how famous you are in Asian countries or in the United States, you still need to meet your fans once in awhile. Continue exposure is essential in keeping fans’ interest, yes, they may see the team on television every week, but it cannot compare to seeing the players with their own eyes and watching them play in a stadium. You can never experience the atmosphere in a stadium in front of your own TV. As for the home team, never in a million year you can see Kitchee trending on Twitter, if they did not play Chelsea the other day. Also, many of these friendlies were broadcast on TV across the world and this provided good exposure for the local team. If you happened to get one goal or two against Barcelona or Chelsea, immediately your name will be on the newspaper, worldwide. This is why many countries which are trying to promote their local football have to invite foreign clubs to their place.

2. Earn Money
I think these two words have already explained themselves. Of course in order to invite these teams to your place, you have to pay them, and directly, they earn money. Indirectly, by going aboard, they may win over some football fans’ heart. Some people go to the stadium just to watch football, without favoring any teams, but they may end up liking the guest team, simply because they played beautifully. And more fans lead to more sales in jerseys, club products and you get my point. On the other hand, I don’t think the host will end up earning much. Of course compare to their local league games, this kind of friendlies definitely attract more audiences and more money in selling the tickets but we are unsure about how much they need to pay the guest team.

3. Gain Experiences
This I think only apply to the home team, no offence but most of the time when teams go on tour, they get teams like Kitchee, Hangzhou Greentown, Malaysia XI and so on. These teams are relatively weak, weaker than any teams in the European Leagues, so these friendlies can’t really help the guest teams to prepare for the new season. Although it may help new signings to settle into the team, and players who are struggling to get back their forms. On the other hand, playing against these much stronger guest teams, from different places, different Leagues, the home teams can learn a thing or two which can help them in their local league. Players improve when they play against a stronger team, not the other way round.

4. Injuries Problem
Some times the home team may take on a more destructive tactic, which most of the teams do while playing a stronger team. This can cause problems to the guest teams. Their players were already tired due to long traveling hours, and cannot get used to the weather in different places, therefore lack of concentration during games, which are understandable. However, when a player is tired and the other team is being aggressive, it is more likely for them to get injured. Although they may be able to survive the pre-season, when the season begins and every thing speeds up, players need to play two games per week, they are very likely to get hurt because they are physically unprepared. This is definitely not the way a player wants to start their season, and not what the club want to see.

I am not saying that these tours are entirely bad to the teams. It is a good thing that the football world is more globalized now, like every thing else, teams have players from all part of the world and they go to different places every year, to see their fans, and interact with them. This can also give more exposure to the local teams, to gain more awareness in local football with the help of these famous teams. But somehow, I think going to Malaysia and then Thailand and Hong Kong is just a bit too much, like what Chelsea did this year. It would be better if they just pick one place every year, and go back to England or other nearby countries to continue their pre-season afterward. Wouldn’t that be more effective? I mean, Malaysia XI is not going to be much help in preparing for games in the Premier League. Your players will be exhausted after the pre-season, travelling around and how do you expect them to perform when every inch of their body is tired?
These tours may bring great incomes to a team but if the team fails to win any titles, they are going to lose more than they earned.