WHY is it that Premier League matches cost £10 million each to show on Sky or BT Sport, yet a minority of the population go to or watch it on TV?

Next year football will take up 26 per cent of total expenditure.

One writer in the Daily Mirror wrote that good programming is being lost to broadcasters’ obsession with “the expensive game". The deal will boost players' wages to a much as £500,000.

Football is proving to be a financial scandal and ruining otherwise decent pubs. Go into most pubs with as many as 10 televisions in when any football is on and the rest of sport goes out of the window.

Last year I went to Cyprus for my granddaughter's wedding. On the first day I went on a walkabout to get my bearings and called into a local pub. To my surprise the place was in semi darkness and everyone was sat there watching football.

I wondered why fly for five hours or more for such great weather and sit in a darkened room to watch football?

Les Woods, Sutton