Going for broke: Roger Moore scores

"Rules are rules" they'll say. "You broke 'em. If you can't do the time, you shouldn't have done the crime." And it's hard to disagree.

Except, of course, that the rules are bent. So far bent, in fact, as to be rendered totally and utterly without merit. As 'foundation-less' as a houseboat. A set of rules so mired in hypocrisy that the man who Lords over them, and Lord he does, should be ashamed to be associated with them.

The idea of penalising football clubs that exceed their meagre credit limits and fall foul of administration might seem like a recipe for enforcing prudence. Only, it's 2009. And not since 1989 has anyone, anywhere, on this rock lived within their means. Not Mr Micauber, nor his neighbour with a 100% mortgage.

You see, just as none of us live within our means, nor do our football clubs; at least, not since the European Court of Justice's decision 14 years ago which heralded the rise of the superstar footballer replete with his superstar salary.

First to the sacrificial altar were Leeds United. But what was their real crime? Ambition.

A desire to compete with the ruling elite saw them plunged into financial meltdown when the on-pitch results ceased to matter as much as the off-field ones. It was a wake-up call. But, as usual, football's governers slept right through it.

Just as they sleepwalked into the blind acceptance that a Russian oligarch was good for business. And that any amount of funding from wealthy foreign ownership was preferable to the alternative - a business having to live within the economic uncertainties of the day.

The truth is that without heaps of leveraged debt or the enormous pockets of some far-flung 'industrialist' or entrepreneur, football clubs cannot compete fairly on the model of business prudence.

Wasn't the original aim of the League's rules to deter football clubs from being unable to compete unfairly? Wasn't the game to stop oodles of debt being wrung up in pursuit of Bosman's wealthy off-spring? Call me naive, but I thought the very idea of penalising un-payable debts was to reduce the indebtedness of football clubs. Has anyone thought to point this out beyond Gloucester Place?

The most successful club in Britain is also its most in debt. I read recently that later this year Manchester United will have to pay £75million simply to service their bewildering borrowing. Makes our modest mortgage seem almost inconsequential, doesn't it?

That the debt in question is ascribed to the Glazers and their business empire somehow makes it OK. Just as the enormous debt that Chelsea really owes Roman Abramovic is OK. Just as the collateral used to raise the finance to buy Liverpool is OK. That West Ham's parent company finds itself in administration is also OK - mind you, where they're concerned anything goes, eh Carlos?

And yet the Football League persists with rules that demand those below the top table, forced to survive on the crumbs of its poverty-line television revenues, adhere to a financial model and adopt the same practices as the European Elite.

Find a wealthy backer, or give up hope of competing. Not quite the model of prudence they espouse. Not quite the same as working for the good of all members - which is what a league of gentlemen used to mean.

But then, the Football League ceased to be gentlemen years ago, as their disgusting treatment of the fans of Luton Town shows only too well. Let those who committed the crime walk free, but serve a sentence on the innocent and their children's children - fairness and equity are alien concepts of a bygone era, it would seem.

So, today it's the turn of Southampton. Tomorrow another provincial club. No, the incumbent management did us no favours, but as the world faces up to a financial crisis that has wiped millions from the value of the assets being leveraged to buy football clubs, when will the league help?

When will those who run the 'club' take a look at its membership and step in not to penalise, but to make things 'right?'

When will the Football League start to address the massive imbalance in wealth distribution that makes wealthy ownership of a medium-sized football club the only possible solution to survival?

Clubs forced or encouraged to invest in modern stadia - Leicester, Coventry, Derby - and deprived of the media income on which they relied, are struggling. We are all struggling.

What should we do? Pay the players less and we'll be relegated. Charge the fans more and they'll stop coming - they already are, Lord Mawhinney, in case you hadn't heard.

Not from bitter personal experience or some desire to see favourable circumstances extended to my club, I call on the Football League, as every right-minded fan across the land should do, to rethink the financing of football.

Otherwise, around this country small clubs like ours will disappear and the Premiership is all that will remain.

Tragedy? Not really. Avoidable, you bet.