He did this piece just before the Man Utd. game. I didn't do a link because most of you who are not signed-up would be blocked.

I didn't bother reading it all myself, but I know plenty on here will. Enjoy.

The top seven teams in the Premier League, when you add their totals together, have as many points as the other 13. That is how good the big clubs have become. We host Manchester United tomorrow and though we have already beaten Chelsea and drawn with Manchester City at Selhurst Park, competing with our elite gets harder every year.

And yet the Premier League is still the most egalitarian of Europe’s big championships, a product exported around the planet, a beacon of success for Britain. We know from all the broadcasters that they love the competitiveness, the 10 months of content they get. Whereas in La Liga they get, what, six or eight games? In Spain’s run-of-the-mill matches, where’s the suspense? Levante are losing 7-1… ooh, hang on, Barcelona might get an eighth.

A strength of the Premier League is how it is run. There are issues on which the 20 clubs might disagree, over distribution of funds or somesuch, but with Richard Scudamore we have a strong hand on the tiller, differences are generally resolved and there is a clear vision of what the competition should be.

When I look at football’s wider governance it’s a different picture. Fifa and Uefa: my big question is, who are these people? Who is in charge and what are their thought processes? Because even though I’m the owner of a football club, I don’t know — and I have little means of asking.

The eras of Sepp Blatter at Fifa and Michel Platini at Uefa ended ignominiously. I am no apologist for them but at least they were both front and centre. There was an accountability in visibility. Now there is only anonymity. Who is running football now? What are their ideas, their blueprint for the future?

Gianni Infantino and Aleksander Ceferin, Blatter and Platini’s successors, are low-profile and there’s a sense of everything nowadays being done behind closed doors. Then you have the European Club Association — well, what does it do? Can Crystal Palace join? No. Who joins? I don’t know. I have this theory, that I can’t shake, that nobody is really governing the game at all. That it’s becoming a free-for-all, where there are different power bases and even the geopolitical landscape influences global football decisions. Which brings us on to Financial Fair Play.

FFP seems a symbol of how football governance is failing. When I bought Palace eight years ago I had a broad sense that governing bodies would protect the long tail of the game, that there would be someone ensuring the power of the big clubs did not grow unfettered. Clubs were being fined, their squads being reduced as punishment for not complying with FFP regulations.

That was 2010. Now, FFP in its original form is dead. It was based on “break even” requirements. Clubs were, at first, allowed to spend no more than £40m above their earnings over a three-year period: later that figure became £27m more than earnings. It did have an effect, reducing Europe-wide club losses from £1.52bn in 2011, to £256m in 2016.

But the problem is there are clubs who have sponsorships that perhaps aren’t really sponsorships, or reapportion costs through clever accountancy. Last summer Paris Saint-Germain bought Neymar for £199m and took Kylian Mbappe on a “loan” that reportedly includes a £161m obligation to buy. PSG, of course, are owned by Qatar, which is funding football in all sorts of ways including the World Cup in 2022. Stopping them, therefore, is a delicate act.

Mr Ceferin has intimated there will be an “FFP 2”, something more simply based around transfer spending. But what would that really achieve? If you generate more income, shouldn’t you be able to spend it?

Yet we do need some form of FFP because otherwise football just becomes a game of who has the most money. Who wants that? There should always be the ability for a Leicester City to win the league. Success should always be down to a combination of things and not just cash.

Fifa and Uefa set the tone. In the past, through the one-member-one-vote system pushed by Blatter, Fifa set the tone that Cape Verde is as important in the football family as France. Platini was bold in trying to enforce things, like FFP, to make sure no one country or league or club became bigger than everyone else.

That tone contributed to making leagues like ours distribute income fairly. Maybe the old Fifa guard exploited one-member-one vote for political power, or even, unforgivably, to take bribes for the hosting of World Cups, but for the wrong reasons they ended up doing the right things. Under their watch, ironically, the game grew enormously.

Now Fifa’s obsession appears, from the outside at least, to be making money. They are considering expanding the Club World Cup to a 24-team summer tournament. They made around $2.5bn, after expenses, from the last World Cup yet less than half of that went back to member associations and into football programmes.

That’s in contrast to the Premier League, where every penny it makes is redistributed.

And have you ever heard of Fifa attempting to economise, maybe cut back expenses, so it can spend more on the game? Me neither. There is a wider question: should a governing body also be an enterprise that runs competitions for profit? Should they not just govern? Similar to Fifa with the World Cup, Uefa tries, at the same time, to govern and run a money-making business, the Champions League.

When Blatter and Platini were there I felt, irrespective of what nonsense was going on, they had a North Star and that was to maintain and grow football as the biggest participation sport in the world.

Those running Fifa and Uefa now, what is their North Star? For the game to continue being the biggest? To keep its broad appeal and broad base? Heritage? For international football to be a healthy outlet for national conflict? I just don’t know.

I don’t know who they are and what they stand for, and that bothers me. But is the average football supporter bothered? Many find the subject of governance “too boring”. And yet we are talking about the future of the game we all love.

Steve Parish is chairman and co-owner of Crystal Palace

FIFA and EUFA should be governing bodies, not profit making organisations. It's bound to end in tears if they continue to make huge profits and don't redistribute those across world football. Corruption is inevitable without a remit of 'not for profit'. And who says that FIFA 'own' world football anyway?

These need to be open, democratic, not-for-profit governing bodies. Steve Parish is absolutely right.

It's the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. There are very few countries where the local FA makes a profit. Most rely on the handouts from FIFA and the other bodies. Sepp Blatter understood that and spread the money around. The FIFA delegates in turn supported the man with the cash and Blatter turned a blind eye to the rampant corruption. Monies are earmarked for pitches, training complexes etc. But does FIFA ever follow up and check that the money has been spent as intended?

Even if you abolished FIFA and started again you still have the same issues. Some countries are simply corrupt so is it a surprise that money goes astray.

As regards FFP the whole point of them was to stop situations like Portsmouth where the owners buy success but don't actually have the money. If a billionaire bought Rochdale and threw money at it why should their supporters be denied success? Instead FFP is being used by the big clubs to pull up the ladder behind them.
I find it laughable that clubs like Real Madrid complain about Man City and yet their own accounts do not stand up to scrutiny.

One more point