John Madejski has said that the Premier League’s plan to play competitive matches abroad has died. The Reading chairman believes that the idea has faced too much opposition and that only friendly matches should be played overseas. Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, has proposed extending the season by one match, which would be played in five cities across the world from January 2011.

But Madejski believes that there should have been more consultation before making the plans public. “It’s already been consigned to the bin,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to grow legs now. There are too many people against it. It’s great Richard has come up with an idea like this and I hope he brings out a few more, but this one is obviously not going to happen.

“More consultation should have gone on behind closed doors. It would have been better if he had approached some of football’s governing bodies before announcing his plans to everybody, then we would have moved forward on it. Now it’s in tatters.”

Instead, Madejski suggested that matches could be played at the end of the season. “It should be an exhibition game rather than a league game,” he said. “The team that wins the Championship [could] play the bottom side and then bring it [the fixtures] into the middle [so that the teams in tenth and eleventh meet].”