Unlike footballers, Athletes don’t earn tens of thousands of pounds a week. Many have to find sponsors themselves or do other jobs as well as train 40+ hours per week (Something footballers don’t do – Many work in the mornings then swan around for the rest of the day).

The lack of interest in football will be noticeable this next season. The usual die hard fans will still be there, the ones who allow their mood and following week to be dictated as to whether their team wins or loses.

This last few weeks has shown what a sad sport football has become in this country. Football should take a good look in the mirror and learn from what we have seen from our true sportsman.

Cheating: You make a good point here, but fail to acknowledge that one of the reasons performance enhancing drugs are not common in the premier league is because, well, they are not really performance enhancing. You might be quicker and stronger than your opponent, but if you can’t play football that doesn’t really matter, and drugs won’t make you hit the ball any better. Rest assured, premier league footballers cheat when it’s to their advantage – diving to the floor to win a penalty, assimilating injury to get a player sent off, handling the ball on the goal-line. I could go on…

Arrogance: You think footballers are worse than athletes? Maybe if you compare the men’s 100m finalists with your standard footballer you have a point. But there are 10,500 athletes at London 2012, and there were only 8 in the 100m final. Listen to the cyclists after they have won their races, you get a different picture, or the rowers, or the horse riders, or long distance runners. Again, I could go on…

Part-timers: You are right here. The only time anyone cares about athletes is every four years (except, of course, the World Championships, and the European Championships, and maybe the Commonwealth Games, and maybe the Diamond League meetings too, but ignoring them you are right). The problem is, just because we are not interested in the training a rower does, doesn’t mean they are a part-timer. You think a rower can be out with an injury for 6 months and then be back performing at the top level within 4 weeks? No chance. Their training schedules are much more intensive than those of footballers and the difference between success and failure much finer.

You are also right, however, that footballers have to perform week-in, week-out. Except, of course, the two-month break they get every summer (yes, some have to play in international tournaments every two years – maybe 10% of them!). Oh, and let’s not forget that most premier league clubs have a squad of 25, and only 11 play in a match, so for over half of them “performing” means sitting in the stand or on the bench, watching their team-mates “perform”. And then there are the injuries (no, not the ones they fake to get other players sent off, the real ones), which leave them twiddling their thumbs on the sidelines while they pick up even more money.

You think premier league footballers have more pressure on them than Jessica Ennis? Perhaps, if you are obsessed with the premier league, you might allow yourself to believe that, but in the real world most people don’t know anyone outside the England team. Ennis was plastered all over the country. She was the poster-child for an Olympics that has an estimated global audience of 4.8 billion.

Soft crowd: Oh, how terrible! Olympic athletes have to play in front of people who respect them, while poor old footballers have to put up with racist taunts and insults to their family. And these football players would never be racist to one another, or insult each others families, or sleep with their brother’s wife, or their teammates girlfriend, or beat up someone for not playing their song in club, or karate-kick a fan, or spit at one another, or head-but each other, or brawl in the tunnel. The crowd mirrors the athlete.

I think you best get back to your fantasy premier league team and leave the rest of us to enjoy some proper sport.