What a time to be footie fans with £6.50 pints, Saudi loan deals and a 48-team World Cup, and don’t even mention the VAR

WHAT a time to be a football fan.

Think on this while sipping very slowly on your £6.50 pint at West Ham or selling the kids to pay for a season ticket at Tottenham.

GettyNewcastle were given the green light to sign stars on loan from Saudi this week[/caption]

Or trying to decipher what constitutes handball these days, taking a shaving kit and sleeping bag to two-hour matches, or whether your hard-earned wedge is being syphoned into some dodgy deal.

Yes, it’s back to the delights of the Premier League this weekend and an opportunity to look at what’s become of our not entirely beautiful game.

The latest meeting of the wise men running our biggest clubs broke up on Tuesday having injected another few cubic centimetres of Botox into the already unrecognisable face of football.

As a result, Newcastle United, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, are free to loan players from clubs over there which are also owned by the PIF.

Meaning the best league in the world thinks it is OK for the richest team in the world to strengthen their squad further via a ‘sister club’ with all its fresh ramifications for Financial Fair Play.

What could possibly go wrong?

Even if it is all above board, the finger of suspicion will be pointing and more than anything else it’s just another depressing layer of murkiness for your average fan to contend with.

It is nigh on impossible to think of any new ideas from the last six or seven years that have actually improved football.

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The hoovering up of our national sport by a legion of billionaire sheikhs with dubious attitudes and vast bank accounts is worrying enough.

VAR is a complete dog’s dinner that is driving players, managers, officials and the paying public mad.

It’s like Millwall. No one likes it but the halfwits who thought replacing referees with more TVs than Currys don’t care.

Games now drag on from dusk until dawn with all the added time which in turn suits the teams with the bigger and better squads with the five subs rule.

The latest goals scored in Prem history have come this season and all from teams in the current top six. Anyone with half a brain is not fool enough to swallow the baloney about it helping with injuries or to blood promising academy youngsters.

It helps the richer, bigger clubs with superior squads see out the longer games with fresher legs that belong to better players.

Manchester City had seven Champions League winners warming the bench in the opening game this season at Burnley.

The disastrous Super League breakaway plan, the multi-club ownership model allowing richer clubs to spread their tentacles worldwide and increase their power grab.

ReutersFifa president Gianni Infantino has increased the World Cup to a whopping 48 teams[/caption]

And if all this isn’t enough to get you choking on your £10 hotdog there is always the World Cup.

The most recent one was handed to a country where you can do a five stretch for being gay, foreign workers are treated like slaves and you need to be best mates with the Emir to get a weak lager.

The one before that was hosted by Russia in 2018, which even before the invasion of Ukraine was stirring up trouble and taking us to the brink of World War Three.

Just wait until it goes to Saudi in 2034. Where once a football fan might have thought Geo Politics was an Italian striker, Laura Kuenssberg is now as much a voice in football as Gareth Southgate.

The next World Cup will swell to a monstrous 48 teams and need the mind of Stephen Hawking to decode the permutations of who plays who in a lop-sided draw and a degree in map reading to navigate SunSport’s wallchart.

It’s worth remembering all this as you kiss goodbye and say goodnight to the family before leaving for tomorrow’s lunchtime kick-off at Manchester City. Enjoy the game.

ARCHING BACK

THE FA’S decision to limit the lighting of the Wembley Arch from now on has been a long time coming.

England boss Gareth Southgate’s press conferences have been swamped by questions about the Middle East conflict, war in Ukraine and LGBT+  rights for a while now.

At least with the team hitting a dip in form we can get back to asking: “Why is the side so crap?”

RONN’S NOT WRONG

WORRYING to see snooker being dragged down by rifts between the top players and the governing body.

Ronnie O’Sullivan is at odds with the game’s chiefs over his wish to play lucrative matches in China.

They are threatening disciplinary measures and reminding players of their contractual responsibilities.

Yet, stars will go where the money is and the Far East is proving irresistible.

All the while, the Rocket claims he’s been gagged before a showdown with bosses — and there’ll only be one winner in that battle as the world No 1 is the biggest name in the business.

Getting David Beckham on the team producing your documentary, out this week, confirms that.

Snooker was admired for its great characters speaking in a way the ordinary punter could identify with.

If someone as colourful as Rocket Ronnie feels he can’t open up any more then the future of snooker is dark.

MADD TALK

MIDFIELD ace James Maddison was three months into his Tottenham spell when he declared boldly after a 2-2 draw at Arsenal that they were  no  longer  ‘Spursy’.

After being trounced 4-1 at home by Chelsea with two players sent off, then an injury-time collapse at Wolves, how’s that going?

DRAGON PLAYS WITH FIRE

WALES boss Robert Page might think there was nothing wrong with his comments after watching his country blow automatic qualification to the Euro finals. I beg to differ.

Failure to get a penalty against Turkey left the Dragons boss fuming. When asked whether Wales would have won with a different ref in charge, he replied: “I’ve got to be careful with what I say. I believe so, if I’m being completely honest.”

If that’s not questioning a ref’s integrity, what is?

But, so far, radio silence in terms of reaction.

One thing is for sure, if Gareth Southgate had said the same thing, the England manager would find himself under a very hot spotlight.