Is this the week romance in football officially died?

By Steve Stammers

Published 08:00 19/10/11

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Anyone who was under the illusion that there is a semblance of romance left in professional football has been put firmly in their place in the last seven days.

First came the infamous "who tunes in in Kuala Lumpur to watch Bolton" comment from Liverpool's Ian Ayre to justify separate negotiations for individual clubs for overseas broadcasting rights.

That was bad enough - especially for a club that has taken so much pride over the years in the way they recruited from the lower leagues. Think Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence from Scunthorpe, Alec Lindsay from Bury, Joey Jones from Wrexham, Ian Rush from Chester. And more recently, Jordan Henderson from a Sunderland outfit who, using Ayre's logic, are not exactly the biggest draw when you travel east from the mouth of the River Wear.

Now comes the revelation from LMA chief executive Richard Bevan that many of the overseas owners of Premier League want to make the highest echelon a closed shop. No relegation.

You couldn't make it up.

Even in the greed-driven world of the Premier League, that is a stunner. The one remaining attraction of football is the incentive to succeed and to be rewarded for that success. That is what gave us Wimbledon's memorable rise and gave Blackpool and their fans a glimpse of what it is like to watch and compete with some of the best players in the world.

Wigan owner Dave Whelan was berated for trashing the idea and yet his club is among those that stand to benefit most from the non-relegation philosophy. It would the end of their annual yet exciting battle to stay among the elite.

And it would also mean the end of the dream currently cherished by the likes of West Ham, Middlesbrough and Southampton to return to the top flight. That prize would disappear. The one luxury left to fans up and down the country is the dream that they could one day reach the top - that the likes of Manchester United and City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea will be playing at their ground. Maybe only for a season - but what a season it would be.

Now there are several foreign owners who want to ring-fence their investment and take away the one meaningful of modern football that is left. Competition. No point in investment for any club outside the Premier League because there will be no reward. No place for Swansea, Norwich or, in more recent times, Reading if the policy had been implemented.

It is greed, pure and simple. The last bastion of the game in England is hope. Take that away from those clubs outside the Top Twenty and we might as well pack up because there will be no reward for endeavour.

Unless, of course, you want to watch Liverpool on television in Malaysia.

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