It will either be a St Valentine's Day massacre for football or the heart of the sport will remain untouched.

But either way a meeting in Brussels today was expected to determine the future of the professional game with York City chairman Douglas Craig fearful of the rebounding effect on clubs like the Minstermen.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Lennart Johansson, the two most powerful men in football, were meeting three European commissioners as the long-running saga of changes to the football transfers system nears its end.

Today's talks were expected to lay down the foundations for the new system and will be followed by a second meeting on Friday involving virtually all the interested parties, who will attempt to hammer out the details of the deal.

The EC say the current transfer system contravenes European labour laws.

UEFA and FIFA have accepted that changes must be made but fear a new system will seriously damage smaller clubs like York City.

Minstermen chairman Craig revealed his fears when answering fans' questions on this website earlier this week.

He said: "I believe that the transfer system in this country pre-Bosman provided the optimum system giving fairness to both players and clubs.

"The situation now post-Bosman is not so good and the proposals being bandied about as a result of interference from the EC are potentially disastrous."

One fly in the ointment of a possible settlement remains the position of the international players' union, FIFPro, who this week walked out of talks with FIFA and UEFA over differences about players' contracts.

Updated: 10:22 Wednesday, February 14, 2001