Shock! Horror! Probe! UEFA Chief Executive attacks England's top four clubs and threatens them with expulsion from the Champions League! Really?

Michel Platini's fixation, nay revulsion, for English football was tiresome long before his rant on Merseyside this week where, ironically, he was being inducted into the Football Museum's Hall of Fame.

I could have thought of one or two more appropriate things to bestow on this particular Frenchman?like a hammer on his head!

Yes, he has a point about the self-perpetuation of their success. All bar fans of the top four would like to see more persistent variety around the upper reaches of the Premier League.

However, neatly he forgets that Lyon have been champions of France for seven successive years. Aren't there equally valid problems about domination nearer his home? At least, England has had three different title winners in the time Lyon has been lording it over France.

Then, there is the debt. Figures this week show that, together, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, in that order, are well nigh £2billion in arrears. But, arguably, only Liverpool has genuine cause for concern until the American muppets bail out and Dubai moves in.

Has Platini looked into the books of Real Madrid or Inter Milan lately? He cites the absence of home-grown input into the make-up of our teams, much like FIFA President Sepp Blatter who's anxious to impose a 'six (homegrown) + five (foreigners)' rule.

But no fan of the top four that I know is complaining unduly and, again, Platini easily forgets that he himself sought riches in Italy when it was far less fashionable to do so.

Ultimately, his threatened sanction, whilst probably legal, is effectively unenforceable. Remove the top four English clubs from the Champions League and the competition would be a joke and wholly unattractive to the British television stations that pour a fortune into UEFA coffers in order to show it.

You see, it isn't only the clubs that seek the money that the Champions League provides!

Platini saved his most furious blast for the foreign ownership of Englishclubs - nine of the twenty Premier League members: a number that's likely to rise in the near future.

As you'll know, I have concerns about that too.

When the total reaches fourteen, and it will, those owners collectively would have the power to do whatever they wanted: a ‘39th game'; shutting forever the trapdoor of relegation; moving the ‘franchise' to a more favoured venue; whatever.

Don't think I don't have nightmares about such ideas!

However, being ‘foreign' doesn't make you bad. For each Hicks/Gillett there's a Lerner. And who is the biggest laughing stock amongst the owners of English football clubs? Surely it's dear old Mike Ashley, the Spurs' fan in a Newcastle shirt? Up against that clown even Hicks and Gillett look reasonable!