Owen in Japan

Reported tonight is that a Japanese club could make a bid for Michael Owen. If this happens does this mean we lose him to Konami and their licensing agreement as we do with every other player that plays in Japan? If the deal does happen (and it could... Beckham went to the USA) I feel that this alone should be reason enough to agressively chase the league rights so that gun players can still be in the game, and lets face it, he is still a chance to play for England and since the game sells the best in Britian then it should stand to mean that the games producers want any potential England players in the game and not deleted because of a licensing issue.

Link to article regarding Owen

Reported tonight is that a Japanese club could make a bid for Michael Owen. If this happens does this mean we lose him to Konami and their licensing agreement as we do with every other player that plays in Japan? If the deal does happen (and it could... Beckham went to the USA) I feel that this alone should be reason enough to agressively chase the league rights so that gun players can still be in the game, and lets face it, he is still a chance to play for England and since the game sells the best in Britian then it should stand to mean that the games producers want any potential England players in the game and not deleted because of a licensing issue.

Link to article regarding Owen

I don't think there's anything to worry about. The difference between Owen and beckham is massive, Owen is younger, playing regular first team football and an England player still, Beckham was down and out from both Real and England when he signed for LA. I doubt he would have moved there if he was still a regular at club and national level.

He won't be going. Don't worry about that.

But theoretically if he did, I doubt he would be included in the game, which would probably mean him missing for England national too? Unless they made some kind of work-around (ie. national only profile)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Nomis07:

I don't think there's anything to worry about. The difference between Owen and beckham is massive, Owen is younger, playing regular first team football and an England player still, Beckham was down and out from both Real and England when he signed for LA. I doubt he would have moved there if he was still a regular at club and national level. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

And there's the fact that Owen's wife's not chewing his ear off telling him how much it would do for her career if they moved to Japan.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I doubt he would have moved there if he was still a regular at club and national level. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The only reason he moved there was because its his wife that wears the trousers in their family and she wanted to make it big in the USA. He has said in intervies that I have read in newspapers that he would have preferred to move to a european club but Victoria wanted to move to America.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SWaRFeGa:

He won't be going. Don't worry about that.

But theoretically if he did, I doubt he would be included in the game, which would probably mean him missing for England national too? Unless they made some kind of work-around (ie. national only profile) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agree, Highly doubt he will go to Japan, and the J-League does have current international in the league already who do not appear in the game (Frode Johnson, Norwegian at Nagoya, Kim Nam-Il, South Korean at Vissel Kove, Joel Griffiths, Australian on loan at Avispa Fukuora) but Owen is of a much higher profile than all of these players are in Europe (possibly not in Korea, I'm not sure) but if he did go would SI actively chase the rights?

I imagine they actively chase the rights for these leagues anyway but Konami own then and are either unwilling to give them up or are asking for too much money. I Konami's stance changing if Owen does go to Japan so it would therefore probably be down to Sega rather than SI to attempt to acquire those rights.

But I don't see them forking out a fortune in extra money just for Owen, that's if Konami would even be willing to sell the rights.