I RECEIVED an email the other day telling me that until just over a decade ago the Morning Star was banned from Stamford Bridge.

It seems that the previous owner of Chelsea Ken Bates took exception to something a previous sports reporter for the Star wrote about the club and used his authority to prevent the paper from attending live matches.

I write this because of the recent spate of football clubs using their power to control who sits in their press boxes and what they write about their clubs.

This is nothing new, as is evident by the treatment of this paper in the mid-’80s.Having spoken to a few colleagues in the industry about the way Premier League clubs are conducting themselves, the future paints a bleak picture.

I have heard stories of one club nominating a single player to speak to the national press after the first game of the season. However when said player arrived, he notified the waiting journalists that he wasn’t actually allowed to speak to any of the press.

He, nor his club, had a bad game. Said club had actually won the match but were insistent that he stayed silent and got on the team bus.

If they had been thrashed then it would have at least made a bit of sense. No club wants players speaking to papers after a heavy defeat in case something negative slips out.

But this wasn’t the case and it is happening on a weekly basis.

Some managers are only allowing select newspapers into specific parts of the press conference. It means that publications are given special treatment and exclusive interviews despite there being a room full of journalists who have no access to what is being said centimetres away.

If we are not careful there will become a point where the media is not allowed to attend press conferences and matches at all.

Clubs will use in-house journalists to dictate what is released to the public. It will be biased and only tell one side of the story.

What will be read in newspapers will just be press releases spewed by clubs with strict editing instructions.

Don’t believe me? Read Chelsea’s match report from their 3-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City.

I watched the game and from where I was sitting City were by far the better side and were unlucky to not be 3-0 up after 45 minutes, let alone 90.

Most match reports pretty much agreed with me, the Citizens were the better side and were fully worth their three points.

I say most match reports because there was one that seemed to have been watching from a totally different angle at the City of Manchester Stadium.

This match report, on Chelsea’s website, gives the impression — in contrast to the rest of the sporting world — that the Blues were unlucky to lose 3-0 and that on any other day it would have been the current league champions who would have taken the three points.

The referee could have let them play for another 900 minutes and Chelsea would not have turned that result around.

It was remarkable to read such a skewed view on my screen. I’m not sure if the club instructed their in-house reporter to make sure Chelsea were represented as the stronger side or if they watched the match in blue-tinted glasses. But to release that to the public is wrong.

It was full of lies and false information. If a journalist were to write an article full of blatant and conscious inaccuracies about a team, that club would most probably ban the reporter from ever setting foot near that ground again.

Heck, clubs are banning the press for reporting on factual information.

The National Union of Journalists are right to take this issue to Greg Dyke at the Football Association and it is appalling that he is doing nothing about it.He may have “strong personal views” about the issue but clearly not strong enough for him to take action.

I really do hope that clubs see sense and allow players to start speaking to the press again. If they were more accessible, the chances are that some of the more embarrassing stories would be kept out of the public eye because there will be a sense of trust between reporters and athletes again.

You often hear old stories about sports reporters and players going out for drinks and the mishaps of players would be kept secret. It was a different time then but there was mutual respect and trust between the media and footballers.

That has been eroded and clubs are to blame. They have kept their stars hidden and because of that the media are forced to fish around for stories.

When a player does speak to the press “freely” it is often through an agent who has his own agenda.

It is why the introduction of players on Twitter is welcome and refreshing, often because they can say what they want.

It won’t be long before clubs clamp down on that and assign club representatives to players’ Twitter and Facebook profiles.

But it’s time that clubs started having greater respect for the role of the press. Head coach of NFL franchise the Houston Texans put it best a few weeks ago.

“They (the media) have a job to do, we’re very respectful of their job. They are a conduit to the fans.”