Mr EPL talks the talk

THE English Premier League has long been the most talked about league in the world. And now the conversation has just picked up a notch: 'Mr EPL' is back where he belongs – in Asia, talking to us and letting us talk to him.
A seven-year absence was forgotten at the sight of that familiar face and the sound of that familiar voice. Indeed, it was like finding an old friend had popped back unexpectedly – and was once again holding court from his favourite chair in the living room.
John Dykes is back with something of a bang – three times a week on Fox Sports that the channel hopes will become 'the premier destination in the region for English football analysis and discussion'.
But for once a press release introducing him was guilty of understatement: it said he was 'no stranger to football fans of this region'. 'No stranger'? At least the bio rightfully described him as 'Mr EPL'.
If watching him on the box is like renewing an acquaintance, meeting him is like walking into the studio – he's just as you see on the screen; friendly, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and oozing confidence this new venture will work.
But this was the first time I'd met him so I opted for a lollipop, if pertinent, question with which to kick off: what was it that brought you back?
Just how easy a volley it was, he immediately let me know: "When I spoke to another journalist in Singapore last week, he phrased it rather more bluntly," he responded.
"'Why on earth would you leave the very heart of it all to come out here?' he asked. It cut to the chase brilliantly."
So why did he? "I had no resonance, no presence, nothing that really tied me to the UK apart from the fact that I'd pop into the studio for the weekend and do matches but those matches would only be broadcast overseas." Like the opera singer heard by millions but performing to an empty arena, he was at the heart of something but could not feel the pulse.
"So after a while," he continues, I felt a little detached from it and felt I really wanted to re-engage with the people who were actually watching a show and talk to them on a daily basis.
"I was in an absolute vacuum so that, allied to the fact that I love Asia, I've always liked the way things work in Asia and like the environment, I started talking to Fox."
To sum up, he says: "Wanted to work here, great project and I can see it working. And of course the family is a massive part of it. My wife is fabulously adaptable. She's a Singaporean, went to university in England and our two daughters were born in Singapore. I had 13 years in Hongkong, 13 or 14 years in Singapore. It's where I particularly feel very comfortable.
"What interests me is engaging with an audience that I'm very aware now, is very football literate, very opinionated, very well versed in this whole modern industry of debating the game whether it's on forums, on podcasts, or what have you. Fox felt there was a gap in the market and this needed to be addressed so here we are.
"In Malaysia, I think Astro do a pretty good job of wrapping stuff around the Premier League but in other parts of Asia that is not the case. So I think there's an audience out there that deserves just what we're hoping to give to them.
"Which is an agenda-setting, provocative look at the issues of the day in football specifically geared to engineering that feedback, building a community and then taking that to wherever it goes.
"So the idea is, we've got three nights a week, a traditional football show in a half hour slot, but as you'll have seen, we Facebook live it, we push it to our own digital dimension, we do it through social media – and it's fabulous.
"So we're already building up this network of people. As far as we can see, just anecdotally based on the amount of feedback that comes into the show, it's working.
"If we're on air, and within minutes of going on air, I've got 20 or 30 people wanting to have their say, we can address that on the show, then that to me is kind of satisfying. And coming along with what I'm doing, we've got a revamped website launching, we've got a huge social presence we're building so I think it's all part of a broader picture in which Fox is positioning itself in this market place as the authority on English football."
All this was being delivered with that straight-talking clarity which endeared him to his audience on either side of the millennium. He is quite simply eloquence in overdrive, never missing a beat, but then he is combining two passions: football and broadcasting.
His positivity about the project was matched by his bullishness about the future of football in general and was in sharp contrast to the level of disillusionment I'd experienced on a recent trip back to the UK.
Several hard-core fans had told me their clubs were 'losing their soul' and they felt neglected. One season-ticket holder of 20 years moaned: "Fans from abroad spend more in the club shop than we do and it seems the club are favouring the big spenders over those of us who have been going for years." Another mentioned the spiralling transfer fees and wages at a time of austerity.
When I raise these concerns, this is how he answered: "I don't really sense that. I think what happens is having spent seven years in the UK, I get the sense there that things are politicised to a degree that is disproportionate in my opinion. It's very easy to say that football is getting so much but what about the nurses?
"But it's not necessarily a valid argument. If we consider football to be an entertainment – maybe not as overtly as Hollywood or the music industry but it is pretty much close to it the way it's evolved into a brilliantly packaged media entity.
"People talk about sustainability, but as long as the revenues are as good as they are, if every single club takes away over £150 million (RM828 million) a year from the rights deal. If we add to it and the commercial exploitation they do, £700 million a year turnover – close to £1 billion – even if they allow salaries to their turnover to be 70% or 80%, they'll do it.
"When was the last time you saw a really big club go under? We haven't had a club go under since about 2012. Whether it's a trickle-down or not, it [the system] works. The Premier League serves a very important purpose."
On the issue of 'tourist fans', he gave a defence that you'd expect of anyone who has lived half his life in this region.
"Sometimes we take it for granted but it really is a trip of a lifetime for some people. It's their one chance to go and I really get angry when I hear Brit football fans decrying these foreigners who come over here on holiday. It's their game as well.
"You might spring from that community but, come on. Your football club is going overseas and making good money out of these people. For heaven's sake, allow them a chance to come and watch the game.
"But then again, foreign owners in particular, will look at the bottom line as much as anything. If what they do harms the atmosphere and it becomes quiet, then that's not right. Didn't we just say the overall package has to be good and that includes noise from the fans, atmosphere and the general sense of well-being.
"Are they nudging the prices beyond the reach of the locals? It's not just those from Asia but what about Ireland and Scandinavia. Yes, I take the point. If you take the game away from the community it sprung from, you're going to lose that innate sense of belonging. So it's a balance act.
"I've been privileged to listen to [CEO] Richard Scudamore talk about this. He talks about a virtuous circle, about having to satisfy the needs of their clubs but also the broader requirements of the English football community – the pyramid.
"So a decent amount of money works its way down from the Premier League to the little clubs. They have all sorts of community and very worthwhile associations they put money into.
"They've got these skills initiatives, community initiatives and one thing that really used to get me was that they'd come out to Asia and do a tournament and they'd be accused of exploiting the Asian market and all that.
"I saw this first hand that two weeks before the Premier League clubs had even set foot in the country, the advanced party of coaches arrives in that country and spends two weeks coaching with players, coaches and referees and gets them pretty much up to speed and into a level that I think might not have happened otherwise. I think the Premier League gets a bit of a whacking but they do a great job.
"The bubble shows no sign of bursting. Commercially they're going from strength to strength. I've sat here and said the Premier League rights could level off but I've no reason to think they actually will do based on recent trends as they always seem to find a way of kicking on to the next level.
"I think perhaps my point might be that they're always going to maintain this incredible level. When you set the bar as high as this you're guaranteed that rights are going to come in every three years – and that's an enormous amount of money."
The only time he was momentarily lost for a syllable was when I asked if he was in favour of Video Assisted Referees (VAR). "If you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said 'yes' because we're moving into an era whereby technology could solve problems. But the problem has been that the execution of it over the last six months hasn't been particularly good.
"Now, I don't know whether that's because we've rushed into it or if there's a fundamental flaw in the way the human-technology interface is working by which I mean … the GDS [Goal Decision System] is great as it has only one job to do which is to decide whether the ball has crossed the line or not.
"The technology is fairly straightforward yet they waited and waited until they got it right. The Premier League were brilliant about this. They didn't go for Hawkeye, they waited for GDS to be ready and implemented it and it's flawless. It's a fantastic system.
"But VAR, by its very nature, is bringing a human element into it so do you say to referees: do you want to check this, do you want to look at that? It's not clear what they're looking for in this and I don't necessarily know if the technology satisfies the human request at times because that's what seems to have gone wrong."
Finally, I ask him for his thoughts on who can win the Premier League. "I think you could argue persuasively for City who's only weakness is perhaps their lack of one central midfielder.
"Pep [Guardiola] was a bit stubborn last year but I have them down as favourites with Man United who look as if they've got the full package in terms of squad and they've got to come from a long way back last year. And in [Jose] Mourinho they have a very volatile manager which could be a factor."
We were already into Fergie time with the interview, but he could have gone on. And if anyone thinks three shows a week is unsustainable, like the Premier League itself, it's a slick package that leaves you wanting more. The John Dykes Show looks like another bubble that refuses to burst.
The John Dykes Show is on Astro's Fox Sports Channel 832 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.