FORMER Rovers star Gordon Taylor today urged the Premier League to flex its muscle as TV chiefs threaten to pull the plug and bankrupt the national game.

PFA chief Taylor fears a clutch of clubs will go to the wall if the Football League allows ITV Digital to renegotiate the terms of their £315 million three-year contract.

Bosses at the struggling TV company claim they will go bust by the end of the season unless they are allowed to renegotiate.

They want to give the Football League around £125m less than the original deal -- a move which would have devastating consequences for the League's 72 members.

But Taylor insists the whole of football must stand firm and he has called on both the FA and the Premier League to throw their full weight behind the smaller clubs in the latest row to dog the game.

"I stand side-by-side with the Football League on this issue," said Taylor.

"This was a business deal and, when you've got public companies like Granada and Carlton, a deal is a deal and they should be honouring that.

"These clubs have already budgeted for this money and to suddenly take that away could have catastrophic consequences for the whole of football.

"We've had to bail out 12 clubs already this season and that situation will only be exacerbated if ITV Digital try to pull out.

"So, as far as I'm concerned, we've got to hold firm -- it's simply not worthwhile looking at any other contingency plans at this stage.

"We've got to put pressure on Granada and Carlton and if they are not prepared to pay up then the FA and the Premier League need to show some solidarity because the whole football world has got to stand united on this issue and say a deal is a deal."

Taylor was one of the first to predict the TV bubble would burst when he started a dispute with the Premier League over the PFA's share of the new TV deal at the start of the season.

So he was not surprised to hear reports of ITV Digital struggling earlier this week.

"I must admit I was amazed at the size of the deal when it was originally negotiated," said Taylor.

"That's why we had to be firm with our own dispute because I felt even then that the TV scenario was in danger of collapsing, and now the bubble has well and truly burst."

ITV Digital astounded TV experts when they signed the whopping deal in July 2000. But even the most pessimistic critics have been surprised by the scale of the cash-strapped company's struggle to attract viewers.

Only 46,000 new subscribers signed up in the final quarter of 2001 taking the total number up to 1.26 million.

But they need to attract 1.7 million just to break even and Taylor blames their failure to hit those targets on the fact there is simply too much football on TV.

"We have now reached a saturation point that even the most ardent football fan can't keep up with," said Taylor.

"There's so many games on television now that it's practically impossible to keep up with every game unless you are bed-ridden.

At present, Premiership clubs like Rovers would not be directly affected if ITV Digital pulled the plug on their contract with the Football League.

But such a decision would have major repercussions for Rovers if they were to get relegated in the summer as the gap between the top-flight and the rest continues to get bigger.

"The gap between the Premier League and the rest is already wide enough as it is without all these extra problems so this is a serious business," added Taylor.

"The current deal is worth around £2 million to each of the first division clubs, compared with £200,000 to the second division clubs and even less to those in the third division.

"So the second and third division clubs are still the poor relations even with this money so imagine what it would do to a club like Bury, for instance, if you took that away.

"We've already had to arrange bucket collections outside Old Trafford this season just to keep them going."