Go down any major road in north London early on a weekday morning and you will find gangs of labourers waiting to be picked up by gang masters to service the capital's building sites, farms and industrial estates. It might not happen in my lifetime but the way football is going, in future generations you might see household-name footballers shuffling their feet at traffic lights holding a pair of boots with a 'For Hire' logo on their T-shirts.

In the space of two days, we have seen Martin Jol's sacking, exit, parting company, call it what you will, and Gary Megson's move to Bolton within a minute of finding where to park his car at Leicester City. Literally, what price loyalty?

In Jol's case, the club handled a run of poor results atrociously and the amiable Dutchman was sent packing by a combination of media scum and a toothless directors' box. But the point about loyalty is poignant. We are living in an age where footballers and their 'advisors'  - dodgy blokes who take millions out of the game and give f*** all back - are selling their souls to whoever waves the biggest cheque in front of them.

'The game is so awash with money that it is near impossible to stay loyal to one club, and the game is the worse for it'


This is not an invective against players earning a lot of money. I don't care what they earn, the market will decide that. But kissing the shirt in the same week you are slagging off the club is beyond the pale. And the reason the player is slagging off the club is simply a PR exercise by his agents to let the bidding war start.

This morning the debate about Jol was clogging the airwaves and the issue of loyalty was brought up by former Arsenal keeper Bob Wilson. He did go a tad over the top with his the Herbert-Chapman-philosophy,  marble-hall, Arsenal-family routine, but he made a good point. The game is so awash with money that it is near impossible to stay loyal to one club, and the game is the worse for it.

Back-page title tattle, driven by a media interested only in sensation over substance, is having a negative effect on the game. How do you expect Jol to perform when the scum from the tabloids have virtually sacked him after three games? How is Michael Owen expected to give his all for Newcastle United when the 50,000 fans in the stadium have been reading all week that he is going to every club in the Premier League?

The road all this leads to is where players no longer sign contracts and are paid salaries (however high). Instead they set up limited companies and hire themselves out as football 'consultants' to which ever club needs their services for a few weeks. Yes, they will give of their best for 90 minutes, they will train hard, they will do the same bloody things they have been doing all their lives, and their 'advisors' will raise an invoice full of spelling mistakes and grubby coffee stains to the club of the month.

So clubs will simply be a collection of individual mercenaries whose only common denominator will be that for a few Saturdays a year, they pull on the same shirt. Go to any major company or organisation and you will see a raft of consultants, trainers and other motley freelancers who have absolutely no investment in the company or organisation itself, but are simply selling a service.

And it's been happening with fans for years. Look at how the branding and PR gliterati have infiltrated town centres hundreds and thousands of miles away from Manchester and Liverpool to 'hire the services' of rent-some-fans who, despite living 200 metres from Fratton Park or Dean Court, are suddenly loyal fans of Liverpool.

You can see it now, ten years on a WAG flicking through a snazzy brochure for luxury holidays: "Here Dean, Wayne, Shane, Gary...how about a few weeks in Barcelona, I can do the shopping while you turn out for them. Didn't Thierry go there? We'll be back for Christmas, and you can go play for Chelsea. I like them shops down the King's Road."

This is, in effect, what Megson has done. He has finished his consultancy with Leicester (and if I were Milan Mandaric I would not honour Megson's 'invoice'), and moved on to a more lucrative freelance project. You can imagine Megson sitting in the snug at the Boss and Halfwit telling his mates (if he has any) that he has landed a consultancy role with a major plc in the Premier League of sports resourcing. ''No more piddly little jobs in districts of Birmingham and the East Midlands, I've got a really good long-term training role in Bolton.''

Well Gary, you had better be red-hot with your flip chart because if you don't sell, sell and sell and get Bolton moving up the table, you might find yourself standing at  a junction somewhere.

The great thing about loyalty is that the real payback is worth a lot more than a consultancy fee.

Is there ANY loyalty left in football? Post your comments below or submit an article to Sportingo if you prefer.