'Premier League clubs paid a record £96m in fees to agents in the past year, with Chelsea leading the way as they spent more than £13m'.

That is the top line from a wire report which greeted my arrival into the office - and that is a line that doesn't shock me one bit.

What that staggering admission of £96m being handed to the agents does do is simply enforce my belief that football is going madder quicker.

The money in the game is just plain wrong, some could argue immoral when people in the population from the traditional heartlands of the game are struggling to keep their heating turned on.

Yes, players are paid vastly inflated sums to ply their trade in the Premier League - and below - and you can't blame them for that. If your boss wanted to double or trebkle your wage, would you really say no?

The clubs decide on how to spend their handouts from TV companies and chief executives always trot out lines about 'market forces'.

But with wages continuing to rise and agents trousering staggering sums it is no wonder that admission prices are going through the roof.

The game needs an overhaul - because if the TV companies lose interest clubs really will be in a pickle.

* QUAID Cooper may not be everyone's cup of tea - but the Australian rugby union star put footballers in the shade yesterday with just a few words.

Given a debatable yellow card - and 10 minutes in the sin-bin - towards the end of his side's narrow win over Wales in Cardiff, he was then subjected to TV interview.

The reporter was trying to push Cooper to maybe say something against the referee or a football-esque moan about the decision.

None of it.

"Look, anytime you get a yellow card you probably don't think you should have," said Cooper.

"But I was sent to the sin-bin for a reason and I am ashamed to have let my team-mates down in that manner and at that stage of the game."

Australia won by the way...

It would be nice if some of this country's footballers could be as humble.