Portsmouth are already in administration and a whole host of other clubs are on the brink of real financial trouble, so there's no surprise that Patrick Barclay is support moves to curb spending.

Despite the recession, clubs like Manchester City keep pushing up transfer fees. And in his column in the Times, Patrick says it must stop.

Uefa’s proposals for “financial fair play” are reasonable as far as they go. Even our own dear Premier League, which used to react to any notion of outside regulation with a hostility bordering on paranoia, ought to be able to contemplate them with comfort.

They will help every league to avoid a future Portsmouth, but without interfering in the ownership model that the English establishment — not that English clubs tend to be indigenously owned these days — bizarrely seem to cherish. In other words, the Glazers can continue to load Manchester United with as much debt as they like, just as long as the football books are balanced year on year. United can easily do that, and they need not see their on-field fortunes decline if every other club are forced to live on their earnings, too.

United and Real Madrid, for instance, have similar turnovers, in the region of £300 million, and the regulations will affect both the same, even though reports in this country constantly and erroneously portray Michel Platini, the Uefa president, as anti-English. Support for the regulations has come from all parts of Europe — and all sections of the game. Not least owners of English clubs, benefactors who fear they have bitten off more than they can chew.