AS WE’VE just witnessed with top-flight football, greed is a disease that has only one cure: the collective power of fans, players, managers and media when engaged in the struggle to maintain the sport’s integrity.

The speed with which in tatters was rendered the attempt to turn European football into an American-style spectacle and pageant, with the outrageously conceived idea of a European Super League, stands as a tribute to those who still care about the game’s soul. This is particularly the case when it comes to those within the game who were willing to speak out and do so without dancing round the issue.

Most prominent among those was Sky’s Gary Neville.