The horror of a no-deal Brexit own goal

THERE’S a lot of talk now about the No-Deal Brexit and its potential to destroy our hard-won civilisation — and yet, even as we seem to be looking at all the possibilities, there is still one thing that we don’t want to face.

We may not be in denial about the breakdown of society in these islands, about all sorts of badness at the Border, about rationing and even about rickets. But there is still one subject too terrible to contemplate — what would happen to the Premier League?

Of late I have seen just one attempt to grapple with it, in the obscure Forbes magazine (it’s the rich man’s Shoot!). Written by Mike Meehall Wood, it was headlined: ‘Five Ways that A No-Deal Brexit Could Harm the Premier League’.

So there are five ways at least, which does not necessarily mean there aren’t more ways — perhaps Meehall Wood decided to spare us all the ways, and I can understand this, because I can’t actually bring myself to share most of them with you, I just don’t think any of us are ready for it.

But I’ll give you this much: “...it is estimated that 40pc of players in the league are non-UK or Ireland EU nationals…the level of upheaval and instability that could potentially result is untold…” I know for some of you

this is like the moment when the Love Island contestant was told that Brexit “might make it harder to go on holidays” and she took fright — “But I love me ’olidays!”

Little did we know that by comparison with most members of Her Majesty’s Cabinet, that lady had mastered the brief.

Oh, and the Forbes man also mentions the Champions League, which should have a few Premier League clubs in the quarter-finals: “Currently nobody knows what travel arrangements might look like after March 29, so presumably, we’ll have to hope that they draw each other”.

It will not stand.