Setanta's rights may well ultimately be picked up by other broadcasters - at least that will be the hope of .
But more significant may be the collateral damage it has done to football's governing bodies, in particular the less than brilliant relationship between the and .
On Friday , effectively sentencing Setanta to death, the FA did little to hide .
Three days before the first Ashes Test, Shane Warne will be leading his Rajasthan Royals side in a Twenty20 charity match against Middlesex at Lord's.
Surely his fingers will be itching to bowl on what promises to be a slow turner at Cardiff where he would be lethal?
Warne says not, although I suspect that the temptation to rip off his tie and jacket and jump from the commentary box on to the field and say, "Ricky, next over mate", could be huge.
What is undoubtedly true, and quite a turn up for the books, is that one of the greatest spinners in the history of the game now acknowledges that England may have the upper hand in spin during this Ashes series.
If you wanted to know what sports politics is like then the place to be on Wednesday was .
The museum may be dedicated to the exploits of some of the greatest sportsmen the world has ever seen but on Wednesday this was more . Except that is for its setting by the glistening , with the Alps across the water. Far more bewitching than anything Blackpool or Brighton can provide, and the whole event demonstrated that even in these recessionary times . So much so that many of the world's top cities, for all their economic problems, are .
At the Olympic Museum wherever you turned there were sports administrators playing politicians and not a few real-life politicians taking time off from coping with the recession to show their mastery of sports.
The is feeling the pain of the recession, having lost $30m, about 4% of its assets, but president insists the Olympic movement will not suffer.
Nevertheless, the impact of the worldwide economic downturn may explain why the IOC is changing one of the major planks of its policy and allowing pay channels the opportunity to bid for the right to screen the Summer and Winter Games from onwards.
Olympic officials in suits meeting behind closed doors can never generate the sort of excitement as a single tweak of a Usain Bolt muscle, but keep an eye on the meetings beginning on Monday in Lausanne.
While they will not produce any binding decisions they could tell us a lot about the likely shape of the movement over the next decade, including the chances of a first British member of the executive board since the 1950s.
The most crucial meeting is the one on Wednesday - make closed door presentations to IOC members at the .
The is a classic case of pragmatism meeting populism.
, and - though Madrid's plan will also be laced with hard-headed projections of the number of shirts Ronaldo and Kaka will be able to sell for the Spanish club.
Returning president is clearly driven by the desire to avenge the , but the merchandising aspect should not be ignored.
Back in 2003, when another United Galactico , Real earned US$600m in , increasing profits by 137% in the four seasons Beckham was there.
Beckham sold one million shirts in his first six months, at a time when Real was full of Galacticos like , and the .
I do not wish to be too hard on or sound like General Hindsight who always wins every battle, but the simple truth is that the Irish satellite channel mistakenly thought that could easily be replicated.
The fact is Sky's model was not laid out in blueprint at its Isleworth headquarters in west London but and helped by a very special set of circumstances that are unlikely to recur.
have often proved to be revolutionary, producing totally unexpected changes in the game.
So, at Old Trafford led to Sri Lanka's admission as a Test nation. Similarly, Zimbabwe's case for Test status received a massive boost .
Perhaps the greatest cricket revolution triggered by the World Cup was . Until then the Indians were supposed to be wedded to Test cricket. Every pundit was convinced that even if all five days produced tedious cricket, Indians would flock to the grounds. And Indian cricket administrators proudly boasted how one-day cricket was not for them.
The most intriguing thing at Sunday night's dinner at the in London to mark the start of the was the fact that the Bangladesh captain did not say a word.
None of the other captains leading teams in the World Cup were tongue-tied. But Ashraful was and what is more at first it looked like a terrible snub to one of the minnows of world cricket.
The captains of all the 12 teams were summoned in groups on the stage to be asked questions by former England captain and television presenter .
Ashraful could not have been in better company in a trio with Australia captain and South Africa captain .
After Ponting and Smith had given their thoughts to Gabby, we waited for Ashraful to be quizzed. Instead she just thanked him for coming and he trooped off the stage.
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