WE see in the plan to create a new 20-club competition the inexorable workings of the capitalist drive to monopoly.

There is already a chorus of criticism — from Britain’s Premier League, from Uefa and from Fifa — that is opportunistically joined by a host of politicians who are with the fans on this issue but with big money when it comes to doing something serious about the drive to monopoly power and corruption of billionaire ownership.

Even if each of our team’s demigods originally hailed from a Spanish barrio, a Neapolitan terrace, a Glasgow close or a Brazilian favela there is a fraternity and sorority of football fans that sees, even in closely fought contests, a sense that what makes football special is its character as the triumph of the popular over the elitist.