The plank or the sword, ye scurvy dog?

Into the brine you’ll go, as we all sing yo-ho-ho-ho,
over a barrel we have ya, so if ye don’t walk we’ll stab ya.

We’ll take all of your best and your brightest, and the fees we shall pay are the tightest,
for looting and pillaging’s our creed, it’s the ethos of Premier League greed”.

In the first legalised mugging to take place in world football, the Football League today voted to accept the generous recommendations of their bustling benefactor, Uncle Prem. The terms were fair as fair could be. Accept a reduction in fees payable for the best young talent in the land, or don’t get the meagre solidarity payments the Premier League has held back until this matter was resolved. Not unlike being asked which of your legs you prefer then, as a perspiring moor sharpens his scimitar in the background of a smoke filled dungeon.

What the hell is happening to football? In the last week we’ve had that bastion of supposed decency, Liverpool, championing the dismantling of collective TV rights; the multi-conglomerated corporations and autocrats who own the biggest clubs calling for an abolition to that odious concept of promotion and relegation; now we have the Football League pinned up against a wall with the Premier League rifling through it’s pockets and demanding acceptance of the Elite Player Performance Plan, and since the start of the season, Gary Neville has been widely lauded and hailed as a respected pundit.
GARY NEVILLE?

I’m reminded of a scene from Ghostbusters;

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

The problem is, will the holders of the keys to English football get the point? Will they continue down this road, peering over the precipice into a portal to hell, chanting and sacrificing virgins in the hope of raising Beelzebub? Or indeed, has he risen already? Whatever happens, it seems football is now lost. There’s nothing for it, the evil spirit has taken hold and what little remained of our beloved, has now been so consumed and defiled, there seems no plausible way back.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you, The World Super Soccer English International Football Premier Gold Cup. It’s going to be a rough and expensive ride.

If you like pyrotechnics; dance troupes; fly-pasts;  running, kicking advertising hoardings with impeccable teeth and newly plugged hair follicles; speeches from men vying to run the next government and pay-per-view TV, do try and control yourself. Your cheque book is quivering.