We are undoubtedly in a new footballing era. The English Premier League is at the forefront of a revolution that is being led by money, media and a global thirst for sporting escapism. Football is the world’s favourite sport and large masses are gorging on the entertainment provided by the Premier League. Some English football fans, of course, choose to opt out and either move down the leagues back to the grass roots, or turn their attention to alternative sports. And rightly so if they feel that their personal reward for doing so is that much greater than the modern-day commercialism that dominates the top football clubs.

Way back when in the late 1800s, before all of the globe’s current football supporters had been conceived, football was evolving in England. As balls were chucked around various pitches in the north of England, clubs made their mind up as to whether “football,” as it was known then, should be played in the form of rugby or football. By and large the lines between rugby and football were drawn due to the separate paths of the professional game (football) versus the amateur game (rugby).

Professional football, as we know it, emerged and the first and most immediate issue for the best teams of the day was how to protect the revenue earned from friendlies with other quality clubs versus the bind of playing the riff-raff in the FA Cup, the world’s oldest football competition. All these years later, we should not be surprised at the money-grabbing culture that exists in the game for it has always been there, albeit previously with a much more gentlemanly feel about it.

There is something unique about Manchester City’s situation at present. City are one of the world’s oldest football clubs – they captured the central Manchester audience and secured the Manchester City name ahead of other clubs’ attempts to do the same. As fans, we don’t want to win the “cup for cock-ups” that Franny Lee so infamously described, but as we’ve unofficially won that cup we’ve maintained a fan base that is now revered around the world for its passion, humour and sheer loyalty in the face of adversity.

The arrival of Thaksin Shinawatra as the club’s owner has, being brutally honest, begun to divide the fans. Simplifying the matter completely, we’re like a city population debating over whether or not to develop the skyline with modern buildings ahead of protecting the views of its historic buildings. As City fans, the arrival of our new and dramatic owner has brought us face to face with the realities of modern English football.

This league is a commercial enterprise and in order to carry on its relentless march it needs to create, innovate, attract new money and continue to keep the global media in an almost hypnotic trance ahead of other prominent football leagues. Manchester City either target pole position or fall away. The wall of money that Shinawatra brought with him convinced our previous board that it was the only viable option to survive and succeed. Well, maybe the chosen solution wasn’t required for survival. For success, however, it almost certainly was. Shinawatra wants to be at the top table when all is said and done and that’s the end of it. Whether he was the right investor remains an open question.