There are 763 footballers out of work and many clubs face an uncertain future. Barney Ronay looks back ten years to the bright sunrise of the Premiership era, the beginning of the boom when football was just money, money, money 

In the summer of 1993 the tabloid press was in the process of acquiring a new footballing vocabulary. The first Sky TV-fuelled English Premiership season had just ended, and suddenly “come and get me pleas” were being issued, “want-away contract rebels” aboun­ded, and Big-Spending Blackburn rubbed shoulders with Moneybags Man Utd as multi-million market madness descended. It all sounded extremely empowering for the soaraway red tops; and there would be plenty more to come. Topped and tailed by the Mur­doch corporation, football had gone tabloid.

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Could this be the end of the road for Oldham Athletic? Steve Ragg explains how a promising season suddenly went so wrong

From the brink of promotion to the edge of ex­tinction in what seems like no time at all. While hopes of Division One football died with the play-off defeat at QPR, Oldham Athletic may be killed off altogether if a solution to our latest crisis isn’t found very soon.

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Adam Powley finds out what changes in the transfer system will mean for clubs

Barely a day goes by without some doom-laden tale warning of financial disaster for football. Welcome news of a sort therefore came with the announcement last month that Premiership clubs have agreed changes in the transfer system that promise to bring much needed stability to a very jittery market.

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It could be far worse than Murdoch, writes Ken Gall

European Union policy on anti-competitive practices may not be the topic du jour for most WSC readers, but the keen interest shown recently by commissioner Mario Monti in the Premiership’s cosy TV deal with Sky may yet have implications for the game at all levels. And anyone who deplores English football’s alliance with Rupert Murdoch might have to face an alarming possibility: that the alternative might be far, far worse. Any departure from the current collective agreement could result in the bigger clubs selling the rights to their games individually, leaving clubs at all levels – along with grass-roots projects such as the Football Foundation – facing a shattering cut in revenue.

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Dianne Millen explores the potential pit falls of a groundshare bewteen two rivals

Groundsharing controversies – you go years without them and then two come along at once. After the Falkirk saga comes the controversial announcement that Hearts and Hibs are proposing to sell their grounds, both in traditional working-class areas of the city, to fund a purpose-built stadium miles out of town in Straiton, an area currently best known for hosting the local Ikea.

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