When the 39th game idea was first floated at the start of the year, Asian football chiefs reacted angrily to a perceived invasion of their turf.

While the outpouring of opposition to the 39th game proposal quickly led the Premier League to put it back in its box right away, Richard Scudamore has not thrown it away.

Today's announcement is about repairing relations with the Far East, which is a key market for the Premier League in terms of television revenue and pre-season tours.

But more than that, it lays groundwork which could get the 39th game idea return.

And that now has the support of one of its strongest initial opponents in Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam.

"Before we communicated directly with the Premier League we were misunderstanding them a lot," said Hammam.

"But after we met them we were thinking: what kind of legacy are clubs coming from the Premier League to play in Asia going to leave behind for the people, for the youth for the clubs, for the league, for the communities?"

He added: "Now I have committed myself and I will be very positive towards this initiative if it arrives in the future.

The partnership announced today will be administrative - a knowledge-sharing exercise.

But it carries a broader significance as the Premier League looks to convince clubs in Asia that the 39th game could work for both sides, not just the English tourists.

This announcement alone does not guarantee anything in terms of games actually going ahead.

Opposition came from across the world, not just Asia, and there remains significant opposition from UEFA and FIFA to overcome before a ball is kicked.

But it is a first step. The original announcement back in January was a public relations debacle, with the idea shot down before it was properly explained.

Through agreements such as this, Scudamore plans to undo those mistakes.

"It was a media frenzy, quite frankly, that surrounded it," he said of the original announcement.

"We were almost put back into our box at birth because nobody believed it was only a year to think about it, nobody believed it was going to be an idea that was consulted on.

"The way the media wrote the story up was that all our 20 clubs were on a plane and landing in a city near you within a week.

"All the world of football had to go on was the media reaction and it's only been since we sat and explained how we might go about this and that we would only go where we were welcome and how we were going to use this to expand football development wherever we go, the mood has changed."