Should the Premier League learn from Portugal?

Tottenham, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Everton, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Napoli, PSG and Wolfsburg were just some of the teams who were at had the Porto verses Bayern Munich Champions League tie last night. As is customary in Portugal Porto released details of the cubs who sent officials to the game to the Portuguese media.

It is a practice I have often thought should be employed in this country indeed European wide. People within the game know who is watching who and who is interested in who as agents talk to each other, players talk and scouts know each other. The only people who are kept in the dark are the general public and it would certainly create stories for the media and this further exposure for the game. Transfer news are the biggest and most read stories in football.

They started when with nothing to talk about during the close season they started writing little transfer news stories. Newspaper sales went up and when the season started and they stopped writing them found that the public still wanted news. Thus we have today year round speculation, it's proven to be what the public want so why not fuel it.

Thr downside I suppose is that with constant speculation a players form could be affected but once something becomes normality then it would cease to have that affect to a great extent. I'd like to see it trialled for a season so it's affect could be judged. It would certainly heighten interest in this rather dull period after clubs have departed Europe and Premier League positions are roughly known.