Johnathan goes on to say that those voluntary bodies can change their own rules and that if, say, Chelsea tried to squash all competition beyond a certain point, it could drain interest out of the sport and possibly force the league officials to cap things like the use of foreign players and perhaps even limit the size of a squad that any club can have. Also, there are things like “breakaway leagues” or new competitions designed to revive interest.

A case in point is the AFL [Australian Football League] which deals in multi-million dollar budgets. Fast losing market share to soccer, it undertook a complete revamp, including first draft picks for the lower teams, salary caps, incentive payments from the League [Association] and so on. The result is a very balanced competition where almost anyone can win.

But who looks at Australia anyway? They also have a departing PM who did NOT telegraph his moves ahead of time.