Foreign millionaires are queueing up to buy big clubs, but the cracks take the form of the money men beginning to think they can run the game, the owners thinking they know more than the men they hire to take charge of playing matters, and both totally misreading he feelings of the people who have kept football in this country afloat for more than a century – the fans.

If you doubt the cracks are there, take a look at West Ham, where manager Alan Curbishley has resigned because the club sold players he wanted to keep.

Take a look at Newcastle, where Kevin Keegan’s position has been underlined by a series of similar events and appointments which can only be described as deranged.

Take a look at Liverpool, where Rafa Benitiez’s attempts to sign Gareth Barry from Villa failed because the club failed to back his judgement.
Then look at Manchester City, the new “richest club in the world”, where Mark Hughes probably expects to be told who he is going to sign over the coming months.

And what about Chelsea, where Big Phil Scolari  is already making noises about wanting new players?

The clubs where managers are allowed to manage are becoming more and more rare – Manchester United and Arsenal at the top, and a few like Sunderland and Wigan further down the ladder.

The trouble is, the men with the money don’t trust football men to spend tens of millions on players, so they read the papers and sign players who get good headlines, often after taking advice from faceless agents or blokes who walk round carrying clipboards and know a bit about business.

This, of course, is a recipe for disaster.

It’s a fact of sporting life that people who don’t know football inside out can’t run a team.

Football managers might often do silly things and might sometimes say even dafter things. But they are football men, they know the game, they know players and they MUST be allowed to do their jobs without interference from blokes who might know a lot about selling oil, running sports goods shops or owning a baseball team.
If the managers fail, sack them and try again. And if you don’t want them to waste tens of millions, don’t gave them tens of millions – that way football in this country might just get back to a sensible level. Fat chance of that happening, though.

No wonder the Football League – the Championship and Leagues One and Two – is one of the most popular in the world.

A lot of people here are sick and tired of the Premiership.

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