JUST how much longer is today's football fan prepared to be exploited?

Over the past few years a climate of ever-spiralling admission prices, fuelled by players' demands for higher wages with a distinct lack of the necessary commitment of effort and sportsmanship have been the primary reason for my disenchantment with the modern game.

Sir Alex Ferguson's recent testimonial attended by almost 55,000 gullible spectators from which he trousered a cool £1 million, is a prime illustration of the greed that pervades the sport today and, surely, must take the biscuit.

In my formative years as a Preston North End supporter, testimonials were organised to help those loyal professionals at the end of their playing days who had given devoted service to one club and received poor wages throughout their careers.

My schoolboy hero, Sir Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse, Ronnie Clayton and Bryan Douglas epitomised all these admirable qualities. While I accept that times do change and it is difficult to compare like with like, is Sir Alex so strapped for cash that he merits such a fundraising event? I think not.

Here is a man, undoubtedly successful in his chosen career, but who has been very well rewarded for his efforts, has a recently negotiated £5-million contract, has a string of racehorses, a £750,000 bolthole in the Cheshire stockbroker belt, and a £75,000 BMW.

His recently-published best-selling autobiography only served to further swell his bank account.

The only way he will redeem himself in my eyes, and convince me that he is unlike his employers Manchester United plc in worshipping mammon, is by magnanimously donating the entire profits to a deserving charity.

JIM OLDCORN, Great Harwood.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.