Mind the gap...it’s getting wider by the week

YOU can almost imagine the zoom call.

‘Right guys, they’ve knocked us back on the European Super League – what are we going to do about it?’ We found out this week.

Last year, the so-called Big Six tried to take an axe to the game – only to find it blunted – and so, with UEFA’S help they’ve resorted to death by a thousand cuts instead.

None of it in the name of fair competition. All of it fuelled by blatant self-interest.

Your average English football supporter might have thought the furious reaction to the threat of tossing aside almost 150 years of meaningful competition, with the inception of the ESL, would be the end of the matter.

Oh no.

It was merely the pretext for your big English club owner and chief executive to put on their thinking caps and come up with another ruse to force their plans through.

We’ve seen it in action in the past couple of weeks.

First, the minor inconvenience, to some, of increasing the substitutes allowed from three to five.

Heaven knows why this was voted through by the also-rans in the Premier League.

It follows logic that those with deepest pockets, who can assemble squads with a greater depth, will profit from this.

Manchester United can afford a £50million striker and play him every other week.

Or a £50m midfielder. Or a £50m defender.

Burnley can’t.

The reason given was that it would bring us into line with the rest of European football.

More likely that unless the Premier

League’s also-rans accepted it, the Big

Six would press ahead with their plans to leave.

Next came changes to the

Champions

League.

‘Historic performance’ coefficients would be used to determine whether or not a club that’s been a big European force in the last few years, but had a worse-than-average domestic campaign, can still get in on the cash from the Champions League money tree.

Once a big success, always a big success.

Have you ever heard anything quite so ridiculous? ‘Look, we know you’re going to finish outside the top four, but you SHOULD be in it. We can get you in somehow’.

Newcastle boss Eddie

Howe (left) had smelled the coffee on this when asked about it this week – he sees it as a barrier to fair competition.

Howe’s armed with gazillions of petro-dollars himself these days, but that doesn’t make him wrong.

Finally, came the news that UEFA have binned their Financial Fair Play model from 2010 – and created another one.

No prizes for guessing which clubs benefit the most.

Everyone can now spend no more than 70 percent of their revenue on transfers, wages and agents’ fees.

That’s great if you’re Manchester City – turnover £569.8m – less so if you’re Everton – turnover £193.1m.

All it does is cement the positions of those already at the top of the tree. But there’s a bigger picture here, about who owns our clubs, and how they like sport to work.

Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are all in the hands of Americans. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Chelsea will be soon, too.

Burnley are under American control. Aston Villa’s co-owner Wes Edens hails from across the pond.

American influence is growing. They haven’t spent oodles of dollars to see their investment smashed to smithereens if their club goes down.

They will be working to outlaw relegation next.

And, given the lengths to which they’ve gone over the ESL, and protecting their patches, none of us can say we haven’t been warned.