Football should not expect limitless money from TV

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ITV soaps threatened by football boycott

The Football Association's call for fans to put pressure on Granada and Carlton, the shareholders in ITV Digital, by refusing to watch their programmes on traditional channels, including Coronation Street, lacks a certain credibility. Most people are not members of the panel whose viewing habits are recorded for ratings purposes. Even for those who are, the connection between outrage at ITV Digital's treatment of clubs in the Nationwide League and finding out whether a particular programme has been made by one of the villainous companies in order to make a point of not watching it is simply too tenuous.

Granada and Carlton have certainly behaved dishonourably in refusing to stump up the next instalment of the huge payments promised by ITV Digital to the clubs. The deal was signed two years ago in the mistaken belief that the audience for football in Britain was limitless, and that vast numbers of people would pay to watch First and Second Division games on television. Instead, some games were humiliatingly watched by more people at the ground than on ITV's unsuccessful digital channel.

Many of the clubs have already spent next year's money on players, and there is alarming talk of as many as 30 clubs going bankrupt if the deal is renegotiated. Nevertheless, Granada and Carlton will probably – legal arguments are pending – be able to walk away from the contract because ITV Digital is a separate company. They will still suffer a minor but appreciable dent to their reputations, whatever happens to Coronation Street's viewing figures.

It is fashionable to decry the financing of football in Britain as the economics of the madhouse, and it certainly has its surreal aspects. But clubs will always spend more than they appear able to afford on the best players, because they are in competition to win. And those that do not win will always end up sacking managers, retrenching and selling players, trying to keep the creditors at bay. Every once in a while they will fail.

The unravelling of the ITV Digital deal may have come as a shock to the clubs, but they should have known the audience forecasts were unrealistic and they should have realised that television companies, like football clubs, can go bust.

This setback is, if nothing else, a useful warning to the Premiership clubs that television revenues are not a cornucopia and that the flood of money pouring into the game will not go on rising for ever.