I REALLY do not understand why football (professional, that is) is referred to as ‘the Beautiful Game’ – when it has become less of a game and more a group of (often foreign owned) money-making machines.

The creation of the new ‘European Super League’, to which six of England’s richest clubs have signed up, is just the next step in that process.

I lost interest in professional football many years ago when teams, instead of being made up of players who were from that city/town, began to field players from other areas and even, increasingly from other countries.

This was exemplified when Arsenal, in their match against Crystal Palace on Valentine’s Day, 2005, fielded a squad with not a single English (or even British for that matter) player.

The ‘sport’ has gone out of professional football precisely because the wealthiest clubs can and will part with obscene amounts of money to buy the best players – wherever they come from.

Imagine an Olympic Games where the richest countries bagged all the medals just because they had forked out huge amounts of money to buy the best athletes from other countries to represent them.

ROBERT READMAN

Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth