The Premier League’s “termination” of their contract with Chinese rights holders Suning (PPTV) is huge, but disingenuous. The PL didn’t terminate it. The broadcaster did, in effect and in reality, which is embarrassing, expensive and dangerous to the PL.

The deal with Suning was the biggest single non-domestic broadcasting contract in the history of the Premier League, worth $600m-$700m over 3 years, 2019-2022. And whoosh. It’s gone. Every club instantly loses £8m income a year on average cos it’s gone.

One week from the start of a new season and the Premier League has no TV deal in the most populous nation in the world. You’d imagine the PL’s biggest clubs are not massively happy about this.

The Premier League earns by FAR the most non-dom broadcast revenue per year than ANY other sports league in the world, even after the Suning cancellation (see graphic and page 22 of http://globalsportssalaries.com/GSSS%202019.pdf ). But it's still a significant negative development

Premier League diehard fans in China are split into 2 camps; those who have paid PPTV for 2020-21 subscriptions and now won't get any games. They are furious.

And those who never paid and rely on pirated streams.

Both groups = massive headache for PL.