WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT FOOTBALL?
Gordon Taylor has attacked Peter Kenyon's suggestion to halve the number of professional clubs as a naked attempt by football's elite to monopolise the game's dwindling wealth.
"At the moment we have got more full-time clubs than anywhere in the world and we should be proud of that. We have more football than anywhere in the world and even teams in the Conference are turning full-time - what right does anyone have to take that away and leave us in the same situation where small shops are swallowed up by multinational companies?
"What about results like Wigan beating Manchester City and Fulham - who's to say that clubs at the top now would have been given the chance to develop? There is an answer to the problem and that is by sorting out the inequality in the distribution of money.
"If you cut down to 40 full-time clubs is the game better than it was before? When you remember that clubs like Scunthorpe found Kevin Keegan and Chester found Ian Rush the contribution of smaller sides is immense. Football's part in the social fabric is even more important - it brings communities together on a regular basis.
"When you add up the combined attendances of the Football League that is comparable with the Premiership. Who is to say that the fans whose teams disappear from the Football League will gravitate towards those who are left? The game itself will be the loser."
Bolton Wanderers manager, Sam Allardyce:
"Peter Kenyon wants to be an instigator in reducing an opportunity for seven or eight young lads at every professional club through the country every season. If he wants to stop that dream then so be it. I'm a football man and I would never stop a child's dream - the same dream that I had from nine years old.
"It won't solve any financial problems: Manchester United players will still go and ask for more money and we'll still go away and spend more money on players and agents and we'll all still complain that we've got no money and the game's not run right."
Scunthorpe manager Brian Laws said:
"Kenyon is talking nonsense. Unfortunately it's the greed of wanting everything for yourself rather than spreading out financial resources."
Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn:
"I found the comments extremely patronising and actually way off-target in terms of the truth.
"The actual comments that you can only sustain 40 professional clubs may be true with the way they are run at this moment but with the wage-capping scenario about to be brought in, all pro clubs will be sustainable.
"How does Peter Kenyon in his ivory towers at Manchester United understand what's going on in football? What does he know about running a community football club? If you take away the professional clubs, you destroy the sporting fabric of this country. We are the heart and soul of the game."