Matt Maher: Pay-per-view games sneak under the radar amid furore

The announcement last Friday fans of clubs whose games are not selected for TV broadcast would need to pay an extra £14.95 to see their teams in action was met by predictable uproar.

You would hope, though there may clearly be other issues for the Premier League to now resolve, it is a decision still subject to review.

While the majority of supporters accepted they may have to pay to watch some form of streaming service while matches remain behind closed doors, the £15 charge (from now on let’s ignore the retail trick of knocking off five pence) is far too steep.

It does not suggest those running top-flight football are exactly in touch with the current economic situation across the country. As one commentator put it, the decision was perhaps not all that surprising considering it was reached by 20 millionaires.

The Premier League, for its part, would say the price merely reflects the market rate. Supporters of EFL clubs are, after all, charged £10 to watch matches on iFollow, with considerably inferior production values to those of the top flight’s pay-per-view offering.

That, it must be conceded, is a fair point. Though perhaps the real issue is whether there has been sufficient focus on whether the iFollow service offers genuine value for money?

It still doesn’t stop £15 feeling like a rip-off, or the fact it will be supporters of the Premier League’s lesser lights who take a disproportionate hit in the wallet.

Neither does the ‘technical issues’ excuse given to fan groups for matches again being scattered across the weekend stack up. Broadcasters have previously had no problem screening multiple matches at the same time on the final day of the season. Earlier this year, BT Sport regularly showed five 2.30pm kick-offs in the German Bundesliga every Saturday, with a goals show thrown in for good measure.

What rankles most is the apparent lack of foresight or planning. The pay-per-view scheme, we are told, has come about due to the delay on supporters returning to stadiums.

Yet even had that run to schedule, we would still even now be in a situation where most top flight grounds were more than half empty. What provision was going to be made then for the thousands of fans still being shut out? Was there any?

Desperate for supporters to return to aid the balance sheet, the real concerns of fans appear to remain an afterthought.