THE Premiership season kicks off tomorrow to a great fanfare – but I wonder if it should be a day of mourning?

The World Cup demonstrated all that is wrong with our system now, against the German Bundesliga which is the best in the world. Sadly, the England team has become an embarrassment and there have to be factors as to why we have damaged our home grown talent.

It’s all being going wrong since 1992 when the Premiership became the great money-making machine after the canny Rupert Murdoch and Sky Television paid the clubs £191million for five years’ rights and created a monopoly.

Sky and BT now pay £3 billion for three years. Madness! It’s not even English football as there is no cap on foreign players. Can a 90-minute football game be worth this stupid money? The Premiership has drained all the money for training and helping other clubs.

How can it be morally right to pay a player £300,000 a week (that’s £22,222 an hour) when we now have food banks and the Archbishop of York is campaigning for a living wage of £7.65 an hour? The Premiership represents all that is wrong in our society and their wages out of all proportion and decency to ordinary people.

Keith Massey, Acaster Malbis, York


AS THIS idea broke cover, a neighbourhood kookaburra – also known as a laughing jackass – went wild. Thus encouraged, my pen met paper for an Olympic leap.

While all Yorkshire’s football clubs have my support, my heart has been in Bootham Crescent since my parents first took me to see the Minstermen in action with guest goalkeeper Sam Bartram (red hair, green jersey) circa 1945.

Why then am I now also one of the worldwide swarming fans of Man U? Dunno. Perhaps because the Reds have always nurtured local lads.

For example, in alphabetical order: George Best, Ryan Giggs, the Neville brothers, Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes. Upstarts Man City, on the other hand, have bought success.

Given the money, any club can carry off a trophy or two. English clubs should be allowed only three players from overseas, and have home-grown managers.

Rather than greed, the game’s cradle should be motivation enough. Which prompts our musing: who will be the first manager to be sacked in the new Premiership season?

This in August? Soccer in summer just isn’t cricket. First-class cricket should be able to run its course before the FA kick-off.

That’s it. My old ticker’s offering for a soapbox or grandstand dance with, of course, a kookaburra.

Ron Willis, First Avenue, Mount Lawley, Perth, Western Australia.