UEFA Nations League faces new battle after Sky Sports, De Bruyne and Klopp blows

Cast your mind back to November 2010.

Another thrilling Premier League campaign was well underway, with Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea aiming to beat Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United to the title. Fans were loving the action, yet it was brought to a halt to accommodate a friendly between England and France at Wembley. Unsurprisingly, even the players couldn't bring themselves to be fussed about the game.

"It's not an ideal time to be playing this game because Arsenal are in top form and we have some big games coming up in the Premier League and the Champions League," said Gunners midfielder Sami Nasri. "But I would never turn down a big game at Wembley." That was one of the kinder remarks.

Friendlies were frustrating for all concerned. Something needed to be done to give these games importance... and in 2014, UEFA hatched a plan. They announced the Nations League, a new biennial competition designed to plug gaps in the international calendar.

UEFA insisted the Nations League would 'create more meaningful and competitive matches' and give structure to the international calendar. Yet just three years after Portugal were crowned the inaugural winners and having unquestionably aided the development of a number of so-called 'lesser' nations, the growth of the competition could be set to hit a standstill.

Sky Sports, the UK's most popular subscription-based broadcaster, will no longer show Nations League games having done an excellent job of keeping those living in Britain entertained for up to six nights during international breaks. Sky lost the rights. But how badly did they want to keep them? Clearly not badly enough.

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All Nations League games - bar England fixtures, which will be broadcast on Channel 4 - will now be shown on Premier Sports, a minor sporting broadcaster in the UK when compared to the likes of Sky Sports and BT Sport.

"We are thrilled to be awarded this fantastic package of UEFA National Team matches," said Premier Sports CEO Richard Sweeney via a press release. Yet, his excitement is unlikely to persuade many British fans to fork out another £129 annual subscription to watch it.

The diversification of football broadcasting rights is a huge problem in the UK. Fans will need Sky Sports, BT Sport, Premier Sports, Amazon Prime and DAZN if they want to watch all the action... and we're supposed to be enduring a cost of living crisis!

Although England games will be more visible thanks to Channel 4 reintroducing them to terrestrial TV, Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland games could easily be forgotten about... not to mention those involving the likes of Germany, Spain and France.

The Nations League's TV deal with Premier Sports is worrying, yet the competition's problems don't stop there. Kevin De Bruyne - arguably the finest footballer on the planet right now, bar Karim Benzema - has spoken damningly about the unimportance of the competition.

"For me, the Nations League is unimportant," he told reporters on Monday. "We have to play those matches, but it's a kind of practice campaign. Everyone has had a very tough season. As soon as we are on the field, we do what we have to do.

"Then I want to win. Other than that, I don't have much to say about it. We have nothing to say about it. As players, we can talk about vacation or rest, but we have no say. We follow what we need to do and that's it. We have a little more than three weeks of vacation every twelve months.

"The outsiders don't understand how a player feels after a season. It doesn't have to be, in the end it won't change anyway. Nor is there any point in saying anything about it. Nothing will change anyway." He's not exactly selling that Premier Sports subscription is he?

It's easy to see why players aren't that fussed about the Nations League when the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool are ending gruelling 55 and 60-plus game campaigns;.

Gareth Southgate was forced to leave Jordan Henderson out of his squad for England's four (yes four) Nations League games this month. The midfielder has just finished a 57-game season with Liverpool. "He's played a lot of football this season," said Southgate. For the professionals, it's just too much football... and their managers know this.

"I still think it [the Nations League] is one of the most ridiculous ideas in the world of football because now we finish a season where players have played more than 70 games, easily - club games 63 or 64, plus internationals - and then go direct to 75, which is pretty mad," said Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp in May.

"We continue with Nations League games because we have to play them [when] there is no tournament, who cares we play four, five or six games with the national teams."

It's obvious UEFA are under pressure over the amount of fixtures they're forcing down players throats - remember, there will soon be more games in the Champions League too - particularly from managers who are in the position to speak out. And it's unclear whether FIFA will be on hand to support them in the future; there's been talk of the sport's global governing body creating their own competition as they and UEFA battle to be on top of the world game.

FIFA's chief of global football development Arsene Wenger also wants to make the World Cup a biennial tournament - which will be hard to achieve with the Nations League in existence - and has called for the competition in question to be scrapped.

"We need to get rid of the Nations League and find clearer events that everyone understands," said Wenger in 2020. "If you ask people in the street what the Nations League is, you won't find many able to explain it. We need to have as few events as possible."

The Nations League has given the international calendar more purpose and there are fewer meaningless games, despite De Bruyne's comments. Yet the solution to UEFA's friendly headache was to play fewer friendlies - not make the schedule even more intense.

Right now, it's hard to imagine the Nations League being in existence in 2032. The competition's start was bright, yet opposition is growing and - with fewer fans tuning in this month - support is expected to dwindle. And from there? Well, ultimately, it's impossible to predict what will come next.