There was a time when players and supporters used to get a summer break from football. For fans of other sports that take place during the warmer months it was an opportunity to focus attention elsewhere and, even for those who found the months of June and July interminably dull without football, at least one had the chance to yearn for, and look forward, to the new season.

Today though, football is a huge corporate machine and there is a need to keep the product firmly fixed in the minds of its "customers", even if there are no matches of any real consequence going on. FIFA try to fill summers without World Cups or European Championships with completely pointless international tournaments and the media manage to keep the back pages full with endless transfer speculation.