Last week Freddy Shepherd told the world just what he thought of clubs outside the Premiership, he was dismissed as a buffoon, but now with the rumours that Chelsea want to lead a breakaway from the FA, perhaps he was just spilling the beans on the big boys little secret.

Shepherd shocked supporters of lower league clubs with his arrogant dismissal of their struggles last week. Whilst speaking at the Soccerex international football business forum in Dubai (whatever that is) he said:

"The big fight will be for the Premier League to take over the running of the other leagues. The others can't hold us back, the time will come, I think, when it is the Premier League running the whole show”

"Many of these other clubs will have to go part-time. When we have got 52,000 fans at each home game, the last thing we are worried about is clubs in the third division"

Clearly he doesn’t remember fans rattling around St. James Park as they teetered on the verge of lower league football and perhaps he should have a look round his squad of players and remember where he bought half of them from.

I doubt anyone is particularly surprised by his short sightedness, we’re talking about a man who’s made a habit of talking out of his arse over the years but now it seems that perhaps there is a grain of truth behind his ramblings and that is worrying.

It’s said that Chelsea are set to lead the Premiership clubs in a breakaway from the Football Association and set up their own league which the clubs would run themselves and, of course, keep all the cash.

Chelsea’s Business Affairs Director Paul Smith told the Mail on Sunday this weekend that "We're seeing an inevitable drift towards the power of the clubs. We're seeing an orientation towards clubs' brands rather than national associations or teams."

The FA, for a change, are completely in the dark on this. They responded by saying "We are very surprised at this story as we have not received any indication that such initiatives may be under discussion," yeh, like they’d tell you anyway!

The total irony is that half of the Premiership clubs are likely to be seen by the top sides as more of an inconvenience than lower leagues are. Do you really think Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea want clubs like Middlesbrough, Bolton and indeed Freddie Shepherd’s Newcastle running their chances of raking in as much money as possible through European qualification? No, if they could figure a way round it they’d dump them as well.

Will that stop these other clubs jumping on board though? Of course not, and in fairness if we had never been relegated from the Premiership I’m sure we would have a board that would do exactly the same.

So does this mean it’s all guns blazing for the big Premiership sell off? Probably not, but with attendances slowly dropping for Premiership clubs and the TV contract up for renewal soon it is clear that every possible trick in the book is going to be used to ensure the big boys keep getting an unfair slice of the cash and to hell with the clubs below them.

By starting the debate now Paul Smith’s comments will ultimately be proved correct, the power WILL shift to the clubs unless the FA show some back bone and take a stand which is in the interests of football as a whole and not just a small percentage of it.

Or they might just crumble under the pressure and make a compromise with the big boys so they can desperately cling to their ever decreasing power base whilst selling the rest of football down the river.

Hmmm I wonder what they will do…….

ron@qprnet.com