Atletico Madrid president against changing Spanish kickoff times

MADRID, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Atletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo said on Monday that he was against altering kickoff times to allow Spanish football a greater share of the lucrative Asian market.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has recently mooted the idea of playing Spanish Primera Liga matches at 15:00hrs Spanish time. That would allow them to be broadcast at prime time in Asia and allow Spanish football to compete directly with the English Premier League.

As things currently stand Spanish matches kick off at either 20:00 or 22:00 hours local time on a Saturday and at 17:00, 19:00 and 21:00hrs on Sunday.

These games are broadcast live in the Far East, but at an hour that makes it hard for them to capture a large audience an earlier kickoff would make possible,

Nevertheless Cerezo believes it would be hard to break with Spain' s traditional match times, no matter what the economic benefits might be.

"We are a Mediterranean country and we have certain customs and if we were to change them, it would have to be for income that was not just important, but very important," he told Spanish sports paper Diario AS.

Cerezo highlighted the Spanish custom of a late lunch on the weekend as something that would be hard to alter. Meanwhile any change in kick off times would also meet with resistance from bars and restaurants, which would also see their important weekend business threatened.

"For people to go to grounds at 3pm, they would have to have their lunch at about 1pm and that is not easy. I don' t think we can sacrifice everything just for money."

"We can' t close the door on it, but everyone would have to be kept happy and that will not be easy. We have had our system for years and you can' t just change it from one day to another," said the Atletico Madrid president.