Rich men playing chess

For those of you, like myself, who like a good moan December is among the best months of the year. There is no much material. Mechanical santas, appalling television, shameless commercialism, C-list celebs turning on tired-looking provincial lights. All of which were candidates for my first blog entry in over a month (and to be fair will probably still appear sooner or later) but it is with great sadness that I feel I need to write about one of the great loves of my life - Football.

There are plenty of things that annoy me about football in a general sense, Manchester United for example, but what makes this post more depressing is that it concerns my beloved Liverpool.
This morning reading the sports news I was struck by the headline on the BBC 'Dubai government set for Reds bid'. I have feared this for a while, ever since that time a few years ago when it looked like the Thai Prime Minister was going to buy the club. Thankfully this didn't work out, and for a time Moores and Parry's globetrotting begging missions looked set to end in failure. However, this latest development looks worryingly real.

Now I have nothing against the guy personally but this is the latest in an increasing trend of Premiership clubs being controlled from abroad, by fabulously rich people who have little or no interest in football and are merely seeing it either as a fashion accessory or a business opportunity. If this comes off, which looks likely, we will see a situation where three of the top clubs in England are owned by foreign multi millionnaires and the other plays in a stadium named after a middle Eastern airline.

And with so much money involved where is the scope for the smaller clubs? Where are the chances of a kid kicking the ball around with his mates in the street making it as a pro when the club can go out and spend millions on a ready made superstar who will generate more fast money in shirt sales? It really will just become a case of lots of very rich men from different countries using our national game to get one over on each other.

And of course where on Earth will it all end? Football does not generate huge amounts of money, which is why most clubs run at a loss and the successful ones are the ones who can afford to write off these losses every season. But how long will these guys want to throw their money away before one decides enough is enough and pulls out?

Remember, when we were kids if one kid had something we all wanted one? Yes? Well, what always followed shortly afterwards is one kid would get bored and so would all the others, just as quickly. We threw them in the back of the cupboard and never bothered with them again. How long until Russian, American and Arab cupboards are full of unwanted Premiership football clubs?