Friday Night Football is like bringing your bird on a lad’s holiday

The more football, the better, right? But the new Friday Night Football (FNF) show on Sky Sports is an unnecessary add-on and just more opportunity for marketing rights of blue-chip companies to kill the game further.

For starters, Friday nights in general are always the highlight of the week. The night people look forward to down the pub, “chatting some shit and getting banged”. But to have that ruined by the thought of your club potentially dropping points or losing a player through injury ruins the whole ‘Thank God it’s Friday?’ buzz.

Chelsea play Liverpool on the second FNF – a blockbuster fixture in its own right. This should be a game for ‘Super Sunday’, not a game which could set the weekend off to a bad start.

The new norm in football of ridiculous transfer fees and paying a week’s salary to go to games is getting out of hand and leaving a sour taste in every fan’s mouth. The introduction of FNF is just adding to that, with the extortionate TV rights, as it is purely giving sponsorships more opportunity to market their companies. It is not for the sake of football!

The very fact Manchester United have no old-school Saturday 3pm kick-offs in their first six games is quite clearly an attempt at utilising the club’s popularity from a television point of view. It also further highlights the lack of respect to other clubs, whilst not necessarily providing a fair enough platform for other fans to watch their respective teams play. It also demonstrates how the extra Friday night slot is purely there to accommodate the level of demand in football by TV companies, which only exacerbates the amount of money in the game and the gap between fans and the beautiful game.

You have to then consider the clash with Monday Night Football, which has been one of Sky Sports’ greatest inventions. It is a brilliant show, which offers thorough analysis combined with a sense of humour. FNF will have a natural clash with MNF, meaning less games are shown on a Monday. The dreaded Monday has been made that much sweeter with the 7pm coverage of MNF.

Let’s not end on a totally negative note. The saving grace about FNF is that we will be able to see more of the brilliant Jeff Stelling, joined by ex-Countdown presenter, Rachel Riley. The pair look to be a top move by Sky, in replicating co-worker gems such as JimWhite and Kirsty Gallagher.

We’ll see what the show brings on Friday with the fixture between Man United against Southampton. But in the meantime, Friday night does not need Premier League football matches. Please, PLEASE, Sky, keep it to miserable Mondays and the normal weekend routine.