Live on the crystal ball, in HD

On Tuesday evening, it was reported that Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre spoke of breaking one of the last great features of English football - the collective arranging of television rights. Naturally most of the voices in the game and media have come out in outrage, but why the surprise? After all, one of the reasons the Premier League was formed was in order to maximise TV income...

But what could we expect from football on television if this occurred? MUTV to become the next Sky Sports? Let's have a look into the future...

Coming up next on MUTV HD

Man Utd at home to Liverpool. One of the biggest games in the season, one of the first that will be on the list of matches to move for television... But Sky Sports no longer show Premier League football, so other than the 76,000 or so with tickets, how do you watch it? The clubs have shown a lot more spine to eradicate online streaming, and have squashed the pubs showing Greek satellites. Does your average Liverpool fan have to subscribe to MUTV for a minimum contract? Or pay the best part of £30 for a pay-per-view event? You can argue until blue in the face - people will pay it. The fan knows it, and boy do the home clubs know it.

Your average Saturday afternoon in the high street will resemble the episode of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?, where the boys went through hell to avoid hearing the score, keeping away from traditional haunts such as Dixons and John Lewis, maybe even volunteering to hold the wife's shopping bags. All to catch a glimpse of the action on Match of the Day, just to justify the massive licence fee you've had to shell out so Auntie can afford the highlights.

Shock ensued when Babestation bought the Premier League highlights

The obvious will happen however. The rich get (even) richer, the poorer struggle to sell rights and end up letting their bigger rivals sell their games, for a price of course. The European Super League follows, the rest of the clubs vainly carry on, and after that? The fall-out would last a generation, cries of "why not us?" filling the chatrooms and forums.

Coming up next on the History Channel, the 2006 World Cup

Is there anything the average fan can do? Well, Game 39 was stopped dead in the tracks, but was that a fluke? Italian football provided a good compromise of playing their version of the Community Shield abroad, and now they have collective TV rights, and Serie A looks like a fairly open event for the first time in years. Maybe we'll all just tweet, moan and groan - but it seems inevitable.

Football in the box is going to go the way of football in the flesh - a rich man's game.

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