Aidan Smith: What's the point in England's Premier League?

Arsenal's Champions League defeat by Bayern Munich was a disillusioning result for English football. Picture: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel? That was the headline on a famous 1967 newspaper leader column which wondered why it had been necessary to have Mick Jagger, pictured below, paraded in handcuffs then sentenced to three months' imprisonment when his four Italian pep pills had been bought legally and were not dangerous. To translate: did he really deserve such a stiff kicking?

This past week we’ve been wondering: did Scottish football really deserve such a stiff kicking as to have the same paper publish an article basically asking why we were bothering to play the game? What was the purpose of Scotland’s top league, the Premiership, when the current so-called title race was the worst anywhere for 85 years?

Now, I have nothing against the Times. William Rees-Mogg’s defence of a Rolling Stone was brilliant, epochal journalism. The editor of the Scottish edition of the paper is one of my closest friends. Its Scottish sportswriters are fine fellows. The “investigation” into the peaky state of oor fitba didn’t actually appear in the Scottish edition and, while it caused a stooshie elsewhere in our media, I was initially going to let it go. But two results last week have forced my hand.

“Is there any point in the Scottish Premiership?” asked the paper. Well, after Arsenal exited the Champions League humiliatingly, one wag couldn’t resist the tweet: “Is their any point in England’s Premier League?” Then, 24 hours later, another wit responded to Paris Saint-Germain’s collapse by asking: “Is there any point in French football?”