A QUAINT Irish gentleman by the name of Niall Quinn stuck his head above the parapet last week to complain about the money floating around in the Premier League these days.

Quinn is now chairman of Sunderland - the club with which he spent some of the most joyous days of a playing career that included 92 appearances for Eire.

Our Niall's been in football for a long time, a fact that makes his comments all the odder.

"There's six or seven new owners who are spending money, but are they getting the type of player that the top four want? I don't think so," Quinn remarked.

"If I was going to spend a fortune on breaking the bank, I would be going after the players Liverpool or Manchester United wanted to sign."

He went on: "In the middle, people are fighting each other and raising the prices for the same players. You can see it with West Ham and Portsmouth."

Yes, it's obvious now he's pointed it out, all the world's evils can actually be traced to a couple of parks in Upton and Fratton.

If it wasn't for those pesky blighters spending all that money, everyone else would be a lot happier. They might even win a few games of football.

It's an argument that's about as useful as complaining that the sky is blue or that gravity is a little too strong today.

Now I'm loathe to point it out - well, I'm not actually - but Quinn is chairman of the very same Sunderland that have just spent £5.5m on Keiran Richardson (now the lesser known cousin of Big Brother's Charley) and £5m on Cardiff's Michael Chopra.

World-class talents, I'm sure you'll agree. You wouldn't believe the bidding war they had with Liverpool and Real Madrid to sign those two gems.

But, apparently because it's Sunderland boss Roy Keane rather than a money-mad chairman like Eggert Magnusson choosing the signings, it's fine to splash huge wads of cash on average players.

Big money has been in the Premier League for years and it's not about to disappear, so everyone had better get used to it.

Of course some of the poorer clubs will be at a disadvantage but when did every club have exactly the same amount of money to spend anyway?

* English clubs be warned, UEFA are getting tough on hooliganism.

Feyenoord and Legia Warsaw have already been kicked out of European competitions in the past 12 months and Partizan Belgrade could follow shortly subject to an appeal.

It only takes a slight escalation of an incident like we saw when Tottenham visited Sevilla last season and the hooligan problem could be right back on our doorstep.

* Why do news outlets actually bother covering the Tour de France?

No-one cares who actually wins - the action is hardly riveting entertainment, is it? - and the only thing anyone is concerned with is who the latest drug cheat is.

That does not constitute a sporting event in my view and frankly I'm fed up of hearing about it.