All aboard for the game's greatest circus

The Premiership returns today to begin the fight for points and control of the TV remote.

From Salford to Singapore the tills never ceased ringing and some teams barely stopped playing but, at last, the phony pre-season is over. Big Football is back today.

From Salford to Singapore the tills never ceased ringing and some teams barely stopped playing but, at last, the phony pre-season is over. Big Football is back today.

And while many will pretend to resist, it is not a moment too soon. With the exception of the early European adventurers the best-paid billboards in the business did not play a serious match from England signing off in Greece on 6 June to the Charity Shield on 12 August.

The longest break for several years meant the silly season arrived before the real one. We have had the Old Firm touted for the Premiership, Stan Collymore for a comeback, Arsène Wenger for Old Trafford, the News of the World accusing its sister paper, the Sun, of running a fabricated story, and a Sunday tabloid back-page lead with the less-than-startling revelation that Howard Wilkinson is schoolmasterly. Just what his pupils at Abbeydale Grange School thought 25 years ago.

Adam Crozier's achievement in persuading Wilkinson to relinquish control of the Under-21s while continuing to oversee the development of the National Football Centre was one of the better news items during the break. If he can follow-up next week by both securing planning permission for the NFC, and finally agreeing a solution to the Wembley débâcle with government, the FA will have had a good summer.

The Premiership already has. Fabrizio Ravanelli's return may suggest it remains a lucrative retirement home for Serie A pensioners but Juan Sebastian Veron, Boudewijn Zenden, Sol Campbell and Edwin van der Sar were wanted all over Europe. Its stature was further confirmed by the Old Firm's optimistic desire to join in. It may happen one day, but not soon. Never mind persuading several governing bodies, their inclusion requires the consent of 14 Premiership clubs, most of which would fear being demoted to make way.

How long this season will be competitive, let alone match the last-day thrills of Serie A and the Bundesliga, is another matter. With Veron and Ruud van Nistelrooy added to an already outstanding squad, Manchester United look more dominant than ever. They are always worth watching, but this is not good for the game. Oh well, only one more year until Fergie steps aside.

Whatever happens this season it is unlikely to go unnoticed. Unless you can survive without sleep or social interaction, it is now physically impossible to watch all the football on television. Quite apart from blanket coverage of the English and Scottish games the leagues of Argentina, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA are on offer. The game has come a long way from the 1970s when there was The Big Match, Match of the Day and the occasional midweek highlights. Live football was as rare, then, as a Liverpool home defeat. It is heaven for the armchair fan yet the latest development, pay-per-view, persuaded a normally rational Sunday broadsheet to claim: "Public forced to pay through nose to follow their teams" under the headline "Armchair fans face £1,000 bill". Forced? Are these matches compulsory? A free health service may be a justifiable aim, but gratis round-the-clock televised football? Fans are not being asked to pay for something they previously received for nothing, they are being offered a new service.

The once-sensible Football Supporters' Association even claimed these prices would drive fans away and make football a minority sport. Quite the opposite, some rationing, by price if necessary, might save the game from overkill. Besides, £8 a match is still cheap compared to paying at the turnstile.

Though some clubs remain oblivious there has been some encouraging developments in that area. with Sunderland, Derby and others either pegging prices or offering imaginative cut-price schemes for juniors and pensioners.

The income gap between spectator and player continues to rise but, though salaries are at the top end already obscene by any rational standard, they remain way below those commanded by the likes of Tiger Woods and Michael Shumacher. Whatever David Beckham's new deal is worth, if and when he signs it, it will not match the wages paid out by US baseball, gridiron and ice hockey teams.

For the moment most Premiership clubs, sustained by television's investment, can almost afford the salaries. It is the knock-on effect on the lower divisions which is in danger of tearing apart the fabric of the game. The growing differential between Premiership and Nationwide is persuading the latter's clubs to risk bankrupting themselves in pursuit of a place in the former.

All this will be forgotten at 3pm this afternoon. Though the example of Ipswich offers hope, it looks as if Bolton are in for a long and ultimately disappointing season, but that will not stop the Trotters heading for Filbert Street in good cheer. By 5pm they may be feeling as elated as Gillingham did the same time last week or they may already be fearing the worst. As the season unfolds several intriguing questions will be answered. Will Steve McClaren's promise be fulfilled at the Riverside, or is he another Brian Kidd? Can Manchester United send Sir Alex Ferguson off into the sunset with a European Cup win in his own Glasgow backyard? Will full-time referees be better than part-time ones. Will ITV's The Premiership attract enough peak-time viewers to justify the gamble? How will Fulham fare in their first season back in the top flight since 1968? Can Glenn Hoddle bring 'the glory game' back to White Hart Lane? And who will make a late run into Sven Goran Eriksson's World Cup squad? That is assuming England make it to a tournament in which Argentina can expect to start favourites. They should do, but only if the play-off draw is kind. This afternoon, however, the World Cup is just a speck on the far horizon. For the next nine months the Premiership will dominate the sporting landscape. "Conflict and Art" is how J B Priestley described football. Expect plenty of both.