“It’s almost a relief because it’s been threatened for so long,” he says “Geoffrey Richmond at Bradford is a businessman. He’s entitled to do what he wants, though as he and Bryan Richardson [chairman of Sheffield Wednesday] are also directors of the Football League there is a clear conflict of interests which is disgraceful They should resign. If they don’t, they should be removed.”Although, for the moment, the idea remains as mythical a beast as the phoenix itself, Torquay are typical of those clubs who could suffer, in some cases terminally, if the plans proceed without adequate thought. Under the current ITV deal, Torquay receive around £350,000 a year. This could be significantly reduced if a new TV deal was negotiated with a new league. There is also uncertainty over the League’s agreement with ITV Digital.”I have had to put in place a transfer embargo,” Bateson admits. “I don’t intend to sign anyone on a contract basis beyond the end of this season because I am no longer guaranteed the income on which I relied for next season.If Torquay United’s income drops for any reason, the money will have to come from what the players earn, one way or another.”Ultimately, that could mean his players going part-time “You couldn’t avoid it,” he agrees.

“The best-case scenario would be a backbone of professionals, with semi-pros and amateurs The worst-case scenario would be semi-pros throughout. We’ve got money in the bank and we could weather the storm for a couple of years, but I know there are clubs which are going to be in dire straits.”Phoenix is almost solely concerned with packaging the product for the benefit of television, a concept which has been achieved before with the Premiership. But the Premier League is a success not because of its name, but almost solely because of its component parts: high-profile clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Leeds. Frankly, none of the breakaway brigade is likely to get the TV viewing juices flowing. “Truth told, I wouldn’t regard, for example, Wolves v Manchester City as being a great TV puller,” says Bateson.He adds: “The silly thing is that this gap won’t just go away. There will be one between Premier One and Premier Two, and a gap between Premier Two and the rest.

The system these people are trying to achieve already exists All they’re doing is changing the names. Well, I can tell them, whatever cake they are feeding from at the moment will become a lot smaller, no matter what they do. Also, let me warn them that, no sooner will Premier One and Premier Two have settled down than the top six of Premier One will be breaking away to join a European league.”Bateson concedes that a breakaway would be almost impossible to prevent should the clubs concerned get up a head of steam. “It’s very important that the Football League controls the situation,” he says. “We should be driving it to get the best deal for the remaining clubs. Ideally, a Third Division club would be looking for, say, £500,000 compensation, a Second Division club £1m, and even that would be only marginal That would total around £36m. Unless we got it, there would not be a hope in hell of continuing There would be no point.”.

My first impressions of the World Cup draw were that is was as good a draw as the Republic of Ireland could have hoped for, and as bad a one as England could have feared. Every major tournament has a “Group of Death”, and this time England are right in the middle of it. With the complicated formula of the draw, I don’t think England could have been unluckier. It is quite conceivable that they could play well in all three games and still finish with no points.However, the other nations will be as wary of England as England are of them Argentina need no reminding of the threat of Michael Owen. His wonder goal against them in the 1998 World Cup finals made him a global star overnight, and four years on he is a much-improved player. His heading is now a weapon, as Manchester United and Blackburn have recently discovered, and his awareness of others around him has made him part of a team rather than the speedy dangerman at the top end of the field.The opposition will also find it much more difficult to remove David Beckham’s influence from the game.