I genuinely believe football is about to find out in a very quick, sharp lesson.
The English premier league is a deck of cards waiting for one to fall and take the others with them.
Many of my friends have downgraded Sky sports as a means to save money, setanta are struggling and will need to change their business model. Football will not receive the same funding from the TV channels at the next round of negotiations.
The big clubs owe millions to rich businessmen - the money that has been invested into the club has been loans not gifts and at some point will need to be paid back.
Every single club in the Premier league owes millions to banks and investors.
Clubs outside the premiership are going bust taking banks money with them - so football clubs are going to find it harder and harder to raise finances.
Fans are getting more and more disillusioned with football and the greed. They see themselves taking paycuts, being made redundant, losing overtime etc etc, and on the other hand they see footballers going for obsene amounts of money and huge pay increases.
Football can go as corporate as it likes but without consumer demand, advertising, TV deals, shirt sales etc all fall and football is left with a product with no money, no investors and no fans.
I believe it is hanging in the balance - look at last Wednesday England match - even taking the consideration for the tube strike almost 25,000 tickets remained unsold - many in the so called corporate hospitality area. Wales play to an empty Millenium stadium for their international matches. Football needs to get back to basics and engage their fans base. Failure to do that will leave a very different game in England.
