Winter Break Welcomed By Blackwell

Last updated : 30 January 2004 By Kevin Markey
The Premier League Chairmen are in agreement that a two year trial should start next season, with a 13-day break in January provided a balanced fixture schedule can be put in place.

"It's brilliant if it's going to happen," said head coach Kevin Blackwell to the official Leeds website, "It's long overdue but the problem is at what time do you put it in?

"You could have a fortnight off with perfect weather and then come back and hit major problems with the weather, just like we have got now. Where do you stand then?

"Players could actually be taken out of training during the break and then another seven days back into training have bad weather again and have their training disrupted.

"The principle I fully agree with but quite how it is going to work is another thing, unfortunately predicting the English weather is not an exact science.

"The players would be massively in favour of this move, people say they get well paid to play and it shouldn't matter to them how many games they are forced to play, but the amount of games they have to play at the moment is phenomenal."

The idea had been put forward at the meeting by England coach Sven Goran Eriksson, and was well received by the League.