Football, soccer, soccer, football. Money.

I'm not a football fan. Mom and Brother support Liverpool to a certain extent, but the family sport is cricket, definitely. When the West Indies are playing, every television, except mine and the guest room's, is showing the game, full volume. I am indifferent to sport, mostly. I do have a fondness for diving, gymnastics, ice skating and latin/ballroom dance competitions, and will seek them out on the TV if I know they're on. Cricket, football, rugby, the rest of the sporting world... Indifferent. I can watch them absent-mindedly while knitting or reading.

I am a fan of passion though. I can get caught up in a match. I don't know which team is which, or the vital stats of the goalie, but when a potential equalising shot hits the crossbar, and half the stadium feels their hearts breaking a little, I can feel that. I can understand that.

English football has irritated me. It's about money. I'm going to address two branches of irritation: The Setanta Thing, and the whole Money In Sport thing.

First issue: pay-per-view football games with the English team. I am not against pay-per-view sport; I think it's good that you can clear the general sports television for stuff the majority of viewers want to see, and for the ones who want to see two relatively obscure nations battle it out on a sports pitch of some sort, it's available. But, England is not "relatively obscure" for those living in England. Football is not just "some sport". It's the national sport. It's the national team playing the national sport. It's one of those times where people can put differences aside and feel the heartbreak and the rushes of joy together. And, for some very rich people to decide that making a few more million is more important than giving people a chance to support their team irritates me. What is even more irritating is that the BBC thought it was worth shelling out £250m to broadcast Formula 1, but couldn't find the [relatively] measly million Setanta was looking for.

Second issue: the way that money has taken over the football game as a whole. Take a look at transfer window time. Players are being swapped around, MILLIONS are being transferred. I know, it's all numbers and figures, and selling a footballer for a few million doesn't seem like a big deal, but think of what you can do with a million pounds. You can do a hell of a lot in Africa, I know that. Feed and educate so many. Change lives. And, in the UK, you can buy a good sized house, and live a pretty good life for a while, just with the amount that one footballer is worth. Then, of course, the wages. Absolutely ridiculous. It cripples clubs further down the league tables, and you end up with footballers with far more money than sense, who decide to parade their wealth and lack of taste with the media machines. A high weekly wage for a footballer is what a family might have to live off for a year. That is wrong, no matter how you look at it. No way is a footballer worth that much. If someone can convince me, I would be willing to reconsider. I'd love to see you try.

Since we're on the subject, when did the Very Wealthy family from Abu Dhabi care about English football, Manchester City, or football as a sport? They don't - they see buying a club as a financial investment. They pump their money in, they get good player, they win stuff, the club's worth more, they sell. Everyone is happy [and the girls and boys get new Ferraris and/or ponies]. Is it a good thing to remove the sporting element further from the game, and introduce even more of this "buy your way to the top of the table, take your profits, kthnx" attitude?

Both of these points lead me on to a small point about English sport in general. The grassroots game is dying. Playing fields are sold off in schools; they play on the internet, not outside. It's not safe outside anyway, says Modern Paranoid Mother. And, if the current trend of "highest bidder wins" continues with sport, it's not going to make it accessible for people to see sport. And with clubs constantly raising the prices of tickets, it's not likely they'll see the game live if they can't afford PPV.

Hopefully, the 2012 Olympics will boost sport everywhere. Hopefully, people higher up will realise something is wrong here. I don't even like sport! I die walking too fast. But... I think that my kids deserve the chance to be able to look at sport, and see sport, and not have to wade through the bull and the red tape and lies and media hype shrouding everything.

I wish I could see things improving, but I can't.