Fifa's Club World Cup imposition won't delay start of new season for Premier League clubs says chief

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The Premier League’s Chief Football Officer Tony Scholes said this is simply down to the fact the “calendar is squeezed as much as it can be”, as he attributed the issue to a problem “imposed upon us, particularly by Fifa”. “The more significant element is we simply can’t, the calendar is squeezed as much as it can be at the moment and we can’t afford a delay to the start of the season.” Scholes similarly insisted there are no discussions about a 39th game, despite the expanded Champions League potentially setting a precedent for leagues that are no longer round-robin formats. In fact, given we got 100% accuracy on offside post-VAR this season, it won’t improve the accuracy, what it does is make the process more efficient.“ So if we hold true to that basis, that we’re not actually changing the integrity of it, we’re just making it more efficient, you arrive at a place that says “why wouldn’t you introduce it when you’re absolutely confident it’s ready?” open image in gallery Man City’s players will have a reduced break in between seasons due to Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup Scholes acknowledged that might be different if there were just two or three games left out of pragmatism, as he revealed there had been considerable progress with the system over the last six weeks. “I think the starting point is Howard’s position is we want our best match officials on the pitch…because decision making begins and ends on the pitch.“ open image in gallery Tony Scholes praised the standard of refereeing in the Premier League Alongside that, though, the training that the VAR are given, the rigour of it, the frequency of it, has gone up considerably and part of that training is they have to have the courage of their convictions.