It really is a shame that the system is not set up to allow those who are temporarily abroad not watch. I cannot see any reason why someone who is out of the country, for whatever reason, is stopped from watching a match at a time. I daresay some smart a**e will talk about VPNs and other means of defrauding but, just how many would go that far? We were happy to pay to watch the game on Saturday at the price of €6.00 but were prevented because we have an account in the UK. So what? We also have two season tickets so have paid upfront to watch the game live, why not take our money for more club income?
More annoying, we could have walked into half a dozen bars and watched the Premiershit for free.
You raise a very valid point about having paid to watch the game live, yet being unable to even pay extra to watch it while temporarily abroad. There are plenty of grey areas with on demand culture making its way into football, and from experience they won’t be in a hurry to iron out the creases. Football, much like music (my industry of profession) is too arrogant and complacent to believe it needs to move forward, let alone with urgency and purpose. It’ll likely just sit and stagnate for a good while yet, resting on its laurels until someone else comes along and sorts out the problems down the line. This is what happened when Apple - a hardware manufacturer - had to invent the iPod and in turn iTunes to save the music industry’s bacon, because one day people realised you could just rip the music files from CDs and spread them around. The music industry could’ve owned its own hardware and delivery platforms, but was lazy and let someone else figure it out right as the whole thing wobbled on the brink of collapse. It then did it again with Spotify - a software company - who figured out that they could essentially take the existing method of iTunes and turn it into an open library in return for a monthly subscription. Again, the industry itself could’ve done that, but was lazy and complacent, run by buffoons who were too busy dining out and flying first class on the company card to do their jobs. Football operates the same way.
I’ve rambled. Anyhow, there is certainly something in what you say, not only in the sense that there’s no real reason for a one off stream from abroad to be so unobtainable or problematic, but that if the technology exists then there should be something in the fact that people who have paid for a seat but can’t attend have the right to access that match. It won’t be cut and dried, but even if it were, don’t bank on the powers that be to look for the solution, let alone find and implement it. They’ll wait for someone else to do that, but only when they’re should deep in s**t.
