Football writers of a satirical bent were left scratching their heads this morning as it became clear that reports of foreign owners demanding an end to relegation from the Premier League were in fact deadly serious.
After checking today’s date in order to confirm overwhelming suspicion that it is not April 1st, football-literate smartarses round the country are still staring incredulously at their computer screens and wondering how on earth they can squeeze any more absurdity out of these latest, monumentally depressing suggestions from English football’s increasingly Machiavellian top brass.
Following on from a week in which Liverpool FC unveiled fiendish new plans to systematically beat up lower-profile sides and steal their lunch money, the news that a closed-off top flight is now on the cards has left commentators, humourists and plain old wags fearing that reality’s current wave of unprecedented lunacy could have a catastrophic effect on the future of footballistic mickey-taking.
Ken Freece, chief football correspondent at arentweeversofunnyandclever.com, said: “I’ve spent all morning making pots of coffee and staring into a mirror for inspiration but, try as I might, I just can’t think of anything dumber than banning relegation.
“I’ve been in the spoof football-writing trade man and boy – in fact, my great grandfather even invented online sporting satire by accident while working on a suppository alternative to chewing tobacco in 1924 – and if the Premier League’s foreign owners continue their current trend of boneheaded, flagrantly self-serving suggestion-making, I fear I’ll be driven out of business.
“Time was when my family and I could live for weeks off the back of a single Joey Barton misdemeanour but, the way things are going now, serious publications will soon be full of more fantastical twaddle each day than I could hope to fabricate in a lifetime.”
James Broome, staff writer at soccerbelch.net, announced on his site that he had already started stocking up on tinned foods in anticipation of this creative doomsday scenario and has urged his fellow purveyors of mildly-amusing, grammar-eschewing spoof football articles to follow his example.
He said: “I might have to spend the rest of my life eating nothing but cold baked beans just so that people like Tony Fernandes and the Rao family can create the footballing equivalent of…well, of something.
“See? It was only announced a few hours ago and I’m already losing my ability to…er…hmm.”
He added: “Well, damn.”