Last month, we wrote about rumors that Tottenham Hotspur were planning yet another preseason tour to Asia, their fifth consecutive preseason trip to the region. While the full scope of those plans have not yet been finalized (or at least announced), today we do have confirmation that Spurs will be heading to Hong Kong at the end of July... to play Arsenal.
While I’m sure there are plenty of both Spurs and Arsenal fans in Hong Kong and the region who are thrilled that this match is going on, the majority of the response on social media has been mixed to negative. And for good reason! North London Derbies are special — one of the most heated and iconic rivalries in English football, matches between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are intended to be highly charged, emotional affairs with real stakes. Doing one as a preseason friendly, essentially a training scrimmage, featuring squads that are likely to be highly rotated, effectively dilutes the experience. It’s kind of baffling why the two clubs would agree to play a “derby” that will almost certainly be juice-less.
But maybe it’s not baffling at all. Preseason tours are about two things: giving fans in other parts of the world an opportunity to watch their favorite Premier League team play close to their homes, and money. With particular emphasis on the second part. There’s really no other reason why Spurs have gone to Asia for five straight times instead of other parts of the world — there’s a high concentration of Asian fans who watch Tottenham Hotspur play (in part because of Son Heung-Min), and that leads to higher attendances, higher ticket fees, and bigger profits. It’s cool that Asian fans get to watch Spurs play football — I will not minimize that aspect of it, it’s neat — but it’s hard not to look at a preseason friendly NLD and not feel like it’s both soulless and corporate.
That said, it doesn’t really matter which team Spurs play in these tours — fans are going to turn out regardless. Including Arsenal feels like a hackneyed attempt to make this match “mean something” when no matter what it won’t mean anything at all. Nobody will care or remember whether Spurs beat Arsenal in Hong Kong in late July, or the other way around. It’s not especially exciting, because there are zero stakes. The only possible exciting thing that could happen is that Cuti Romero is still around, doesn’t get the memo, and two-foot-tackles Declan Rice or something. THAT would be worth the price of admission.
I’m annoyed, but this is going to happen no matter now dumb I think it is.