League's lust for Sky cash is damaging the health of our game

Chelsea may or may not still be title challengers by 17 April, but if they are, they and their fans have every right to be totally hacked off to be expected to travel to Merseyside for a Thursday night fixture with Everton. That's a mere three days after they entertain Wigan, when the Goodison Park game was originally scheduled for the Saturday, two days later, allowing proper respite for tired limbs.

And why has this decision been made? Because Sky wants to show Chelsea. Fair enough, but why not make it Sky's Sunday match on 20 April? Irritating to the fans (but why bother about them is the Premier League's motto) but at least not unfair to the club as well.

Answer because Portsmouth and Manchester City are scheduled for that slot, and are unlikely to willingly give it up because there's half a million big ones in it for each of them. And even though this is a game even Harry Redknapp's cat might struggle to take much interest in, it's therefore sacrosanct. Because money doesn't just talk in the Premier League it screams blue murder.

So let's try this one. Why doesn't the Premier League bung City and Pompey the TV money, while Everton and Chelsea fill the Sunday slot? The Premier League can, however, be expected to be as offended as a maiden aunt propositioned by a kerb crawler by that idea.

So there you have it. What a mess. I mean, who's going to travel to Goodison from London on a Thursday night? Does that matter? Actually it does, because atmosphere counts - particularly on the TV. There wasn't much of it at the Bridge on Sunday, for a fixture the timing of which had been changed three times - the consequence was 10,000 empty seats.

Isn't it about time someone at the Premier League woke up to the fact that the Sky contract doesn't require them to lie prostrate in front of TV executives every time Sky make an unacceptable demand?

Not that Avram Grant needs any help from Sky to blow Chelsea's chances of the Premier League. He's well capable of doing that all by himself. As witness a magic moment in the second half of Sunday's dire encounter with Middlesbrough.

Chelsea were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box. Two of the worlds best-paid footballers, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack, squabbled over who should take it, then compromised on one tapping the ball a couple of feet to the other. They messed up this manoeuvre, finally passing the ball to a startled John Obi Mikel, who shot wide.

That's the kind of careful training ground preparation that will petrify Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, isn't it, Avram?

Flame's gone out in China

the Olympic flame arrived in Beijing devoid of everybody except officials, security men and a selected crowd. That tells you there is something rotten in the state of China.

It's not foreign critics they're frightened of now but their own people, who were kept away en masse on what should have been an occasion of national jubilation. But the gerontocracy who run China were frightened of celebrations getting out of hand. They simply didn't believe a crowd of Chinese citizens could be safely gathered together in front of the world's cameras without some of them turning on their own leadership.

And another unsightly little massacre in Tiananmen Square might even have turned the stomachs of the ever-so-tolerant International Olympics Committee, who should by now be thoroughly ashamed of their crass decision to award the Games to Beijing in the first place.

Be careful what you wish for is a Chinese proverb which the country's dictatorship foolishly forgot when they campaigned for the Games. I bet they now wish they hadn't, and there's worse to come.

Dwain's conversion is another disgrace

Apparently Dwain Chambers thinks a month with Castleford Tigers could turn him into a first-class performer, worthy of a place in the Super League.

Chambers never imagined a few weeks at Old Trafford, plus running fast, would make him a serious rival to Cristiano Ronaldo, so what gives him the idea the necessary skills to be a top rugby league player can be so easily acquired? What an insult to the sport.

Meddling chiefs shame athletics

The IAAF have stripped drugs cheat sprinter Marion Jones of all her medals, including the one she won at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, which they have given instead to controversial Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou who just happens to be, would you believe, a suspected drugs abuser banned in 2004 for missing three drugs tests. That's how to restore confidence in athletics at a stroke. Nice one, fellas!

UEFA's Roman road bypasses Wembley

Virtually nothing has been spent on Rome's Olympic Stadium since the 1960 Games, yet UEFA have deemed it an appropriate venue for next year's Champions League Final. State-of-the-art Wembley, on the other hand, has been rejected for the 2010 final. It begs the question why, in a week that UEFA president Michel Platini again railed against the English game, did our national stadium miss out?