Brian Reade with a very good piece in the Mirror:
‘One of the more compelling aspects of football is how it never ceases to throw up hate figures. In the old days it used to be seat-lobbing hooligans and chairmen with pork-pie pallors, then agents and the Bosman-rich players became public enemies one and two. And now we have a new breed of monster through whose hearts we'd all like to plunge a stake. The chief executives.
‘It's the callous way these hand-cut suits deliver their brutal Thatcherite assessment of "the industry", the steely belief that the only point of football is to accrue more cash for their business, the smug contempt for smaller teams with longer histories than their own, and the arrogant certainty that they hold the future of the game in their grubby hands, that puts them down there with Beelzebub.
‘Manchester United's David Gill, unable to accept that his plc could only rack up profits of £12.4 million this year, wants UEFA to strip what sporting element is left in the Champions League, by seeding teams after the knock-out stages to rig it in favour of the richest clubs.
‘Which might make sense to a finance director who oversaw United's pulling out of the FA Cup four years ago, who agreed to take the words "football club" off United's badge, and called criticism by Sepp Blatter of Rio Ferdinand's failure to take a drugs test "incomprehensible." But anyone with a smattering of football knowledge will see it for the grotesque proposition it is.
‘United's profits are down because last season they weren't very good. They are out of Europe now because they ignored the current seeding system of winning your group and drawing a weaker team, finished runners-up when they didn't need to, and met a much better side in Milan.
‘How high up the Champions League rankings would this United be placed when, over the past six years, they've won one of their seven knock-out ties?
‘But then Gill doesn't want it seeded on ability, but on annual turnover, which would place his "product" as he's fond of calling it, in its rightful business position to maximise shareholder return. UEFA have called his comments a joke, but they are the opposite.
‘They are the clear thinking of men who genuinely believe football has evolved from being a sport which thrives on risk, talent, luck and fear into a FTSE sector where businessmen demand guaranteed earnings growth consistent with their brand value.
‘The sad reality is that Gill will probably get his way over the next decade, or form a closed shop with similar-sized CEOs, barring irritants like Porto and Monaco from using ability to contest Europe's biggest game, while they gorge themselves obese on football's riches.
‘And the only comfort is that history will judge them as the hate figures who finally killed the game. At least it would be comforting if that prospect remotely troubled them.’