A record number of companies are at risk of default.
Some of the world’s leading investment-grade companies look in danger of being unable to finance their debts.
Meanwhile, ScudamoreWorld reckon that the English game is established on sound foundations.
A Premier League 'spokesperson' was forced into this defensive position after the Premier League had circulated all league members with a memorandum.
The Premiership clubs are being reminded of their financial and legal obligations to each other, while the letter demanded that transfer debts be honoured in full.
There are rumours that at least two clubs are unable to service the clauses in their transfer contracts.
But, the Premier League memo has had the opposite effect to that intended.
It has set off a panic as clubs realise that not only are their own balance sheets severely compromised, but the expected incomings might not be hyperrealised either.
Furthermore, initial soundings show that the transfer markets are going to be dead in January, although there will be bargains as leveraged clubs are forced to dispose of their asset platform (as squads have become quaintly named in ScudamoreWorld).
This is a microcosm of the panic and mistrust that is spooking the financial system.
We ain't seen nothing yet.
Rupert Lowe: "People's budgets are under stress. We are a microcosm of the rest of the economy. Where football, I think, will suffer is that, in the past, it has not always run itself in such a way that it has created a balanced and sustainable budget within each club."
John Authers in the Financial Times: "Markets turn on fear and hope."
Or, in ScudamoreWorld, on Fear and Hype.
Our Great Leader understands that Lowe is correct in his summation of the state of the English game.
Our Great Leader understands that clubs are going to go bankrupt.
Our Great Leader understands that the only route out of insolvency is for the clubs to embrace the gambling industry.
Our Great Leader understands that markets are psychological mechanisms.
Our Great Leader understands that the true state of the hyperreality must not be exposed, as the finances underpinning the industry will simply seize up.
Our Great Leader is a "nihilist thought in the brain of God".
The words "delaying" and "inevitable" spring to mind.
Take Valencia.
This G14(18) club are on the verge of bankruptcy.
According to Marca, unless Los Che find €50 million by December 31st, then the end is nigh.
The club are seeking a loan from Bancaja but, then again, banks are not in the habit of lending in the current climate.
Its a systemic snarl up.
And they will not be able to rely on the January transfer window as prices will plummet.
There are six other leading Spanish clubs in severe financial danger.
Or, take West Ham United.
The FA don't move very quickly on matters.
In fact some matters may take years until they are carefully filed away under the footballing equivalent of Official Secrets.
But, sometimes, in order to protect the pseudo-integrity of the English game, the FA is able to be panther-like in its dexterities.
The Hammers are due to appear in the live Setanta game on Monday evening, and in a hush-hush deal, they have signed a shirt sponsorship deal with SBOBET, the company that allegedly had some prior knowledge of the allegedly rigged match between Norwich City and Derby County in the English Championship.
Allegedly allegedly allegedly...
Anyway, the FA now tells us that the game was totally legit.
And just in time for the live match and the launch of the new shirts too.
How very very convenient.
We'll just kind of ignore the suspicious betting patterns then, shall we?
And Roy Carroll?
Excellent.
Clubs will increasingly have to cosy up to the gambling industry as, lo and behold, one of the few sectors to profit from a Depression/Recession are the addictive hypermarkets.
Some of these ties will be at ownership level.
Some will be sponsorship deals.
These structural hyperrealities will become the norm.
Indeed, this week saw a further step in the deconstruction of one of the most spectacular of such infrastructures at Manchester City.
As Thaksin Shinawatra hides away in South East Asia plotting revolution in Thailand, the press is remaining suitably attendant to the hiding of the hyperreality that Mr Thaksin still owns 25% of the Manchester club.
Given that the man is barred from the country, this kind of demolishes the efficacy of the Premier League's fit-and-proper-person's test (FPPT).
After the latest barring of one of his proxy political parties, His Excellency had a new one ready.
Just like that...
Welcome to the world "Puca Thai", the new People's Power Party.
And, guess who is running the party?
Thaksin's cousin Chaisit Shinawatra.
Ah! Meritocracy and Democracy...
And now it looks like Mark Clattenburg is unlikely to be returning to match officiating.
Summoned by the PGMOB on Thursday, Clattenburg had to explain the numerous visits to internet gambling sites that the police found on his computer.
Mr Clattenburg brought all this on himself really, as his on-field delusions of grandeur took over other areas of his life.
The police were called in, and Clattenburg originally banned just prior to the start of the season, when emails surfaced in which the PGMOB official allegedly threatened a former business associate with the words: "... taking me to court might cause your family some pain."
And he has still not yet had his contract of employment terminated.
What exactly does one have to do in ScudamoreWorld to prompt any response from the powers-that-be?
All sports, and all businesses in all sectors, are desperately trying to balance the books in times of Depression.
No credit.
No cash.
No sales.
Inability to furnish debts.
Seizure.
This week's news that Honda was pulling out of Formula 1 caused two of sport's other more odious autocrats to be forced to defend the sustainability of their eminently non-sustainable product.
Max Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone, Richard Scudamore...
It follows a plan.
Anyway, its nearly christmas...
Altogether now:
"Feed the Scousers...
...Let them know its Christmastime."
Jacques Derrida: "Poetry is to prophecy what the idol is to truth."
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
