IT IS an old-fashioned saying, but everything is good in moderation and I think that phrase is particularly apt when talking about the current relationship between football and television.

It seems you can't have one without the other but we have got to be careful that we don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Certainly, television has done a lot to raise the profile of the game in recent years but I really believe we are getting to saturation point now.

There are 60-odd Premiership games screened live by Sky.

Then on ITV there's 65 Division One matches, between eight and 15 Division Two and Three matches, 20 Football League pay for view matches, 15 Worthington Cup matches, and 40 UEFA Champions League games.

When is it all going to end?

There's a grave danger that it's all going to become too much.

The game is for people to watch - ideally live in the stadium.

But if we are not careful people are going to be driven away from live football.

For example, there was one lad in the papers earlier this week who'd managed to watch 40 hours of continuous football.

It just goes to prove how much football is on television at the moment and if we are not careful everyone is going to end up like him.

We are in danger of breeding a nation of couch potatoes whose only experience of football is watching it on the television.

They are going to be just sat in the house watching a game every day of the week, and not just one game every day of the week.

Ultimately, it is bound to have an effect on attendances, particularly in the lower leagues.

And the more Premiership football that is shown, the more people think that is the norm. But it is not.

Players in the Premiership are playing in that league for a reason and that goes for players in Divisions One, Two and Three.

You can't expect players in the Third Division to be doing what players in the Premiership are doing.

But people who watch it on TV may decide to come to a game and their expectations can't possibly be met.

As important as the quantity is the quality of the coverage.

For starters, there is all this football on TV but much of it is not free and I wonder at times where people get all the money from to afford it.

It becomes a ratings war for TV bosses and the actual football is of secondary importance.

Even after the first weekend of the Premiership season, the BBC, at the same time as ITV launched The Premiership, put on a special Weakest Link and that attracted more viewers.

The much-hyped The Premiership, believe it or not, was blasted for a distinct lack of football.

I understand there was just 28 minutes of action, 13 minutes of adverts, 27 minutes of chit-chat, compared to 56 minutes of action on the old Match of the Day.

I think people would be much happier with less talk and more quality viewing, and more quality viewing means more action in my book.

People want to see the game being played rather than listen to people talk about it.

It used to be that Match of the Day was just highlights showing the goals as were regional programmes like Goals on Sunday. Now that's not enough. The TV bosses are now following Sky, who want to talk about every detail of the game, and I think we are in danger of being brainwashed.

It's not just a case of talking after games about what has happened but now they have discussions at 1pm from so-called experts talking about what they think is going to happen.

Everyone knows, you never know what is going to happen in football. That's why they go to the games.

But a lot of people who watch it believe what they are being told.

Of course, and as I mentioned earlier, television has done a lot to raise the profile of football and has invested millions of pounds into the game.

For that we should be grateful, but even then I am not sure everything is so black and white.

The money coming into the game is phenomenal but the lion's share goes straight into Premiership pockets.

There is little doubt this extra income has led to the top players being paid these grotesque amounts of money.

It is making the gap between the Premiership and the Football League wider and wider, which can only be a bad thing for the long-term future of the game

As importantly, the massive wages in the top flight trickle their way down through the divisions and while clubs like York City have received more money from television, I doubt the extra income matches the increase in wages that have come about because of television. It is a very vicious circle.