Why would anyone want to try and take on Sky when it comes to football coverage in the UK?

It's pointless. Setenta really should have known better. You only have to look at what happened to ITV Digital to see that anyone that tries to barge its way into Sky's monopoly on the English game is going to end up in trouble. Sky have football wrapped up although it might be interesting to see what a broadcaster the size of ESPN can do to that the next time the rights are up for renewal.

Setenta's collapse could mean big problems for a lot of football clubs in this country and north of the Border. The money due to be pumped into the Blue Square Premier and Scottish Premier League will already be factored into budgets going forward and to lose a huge chunk of that is going to be a crushing blow. It will not matter to the likes of Celtic and Rangers up there but many of the rest are already fighting to keep their heads above water. It was the same all through the Football League at the start of the decade when ITV Digital went belly up.

Clubs were promised money at regular intervals from the broadcaster and thought they could budget to spend it. It's like planning to spend next month's wage and then suddenly finding out it isn't coming. Inevitably a lot of clubs, Barnsley included, over budgeted because of this and were forced into administration. I would not be surprised if many more in the Blue Square or Scottish league do the same.

Maybe it's time to just hand a complete monopoly on football in the UK to Sky. That might mean that the money pumped into the top level of the game is watered down but it will stop a rival broadcaster coming along and making promises that, inevitably, it cannot keep.

The Football Association are also facing a shortfall in funds of something like £100m over the next few years because of Setenta's failures. There is only one place this loss will hit and that is the game at grassroots. Every local football team in the country could suffer because of Setanta as the FA has a National Game Strategy, set to pump £200m into the grassroots game in the next three years. A large part of that will have been earmarked from the Setanta payments and because of that the whole of football - and the development of youngsters in this country - could be amongst the big losers.

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