Peter Corrigan: We live in changing times – and it's wrong

Whether it be football or rugby, those devoted throngs who turn up to support their teams week after week in the hugely mistaken belief that their loyalty means something to the games they love had better be prepared for even more kick-offs in the teeth.

They may enjoy more comfort than the huddled masses who used to cram the terraces – mind you, the old bob-bankers would be horrified by what they have to pay for the privilege – but their convenience means nothing to the controllers of our major sports.

We have to recognise that turnstiles have long lost the ability to fund our major games, certainly not in the lavish manner to which they have become accustomed, and that television is likely to play an increasingly demanding part in sport's development. It would be hypocritical in the extreme to say that the average sports fan does not revel in the amount of televised sport now available on a daily basis. But it is important to acknowledge that no one is paying a bigger price for this orgy of live sport than the live supporter.

And last week brought another clear indication that the situation is going to get worse. The Football Association, so-called guardians of the game, revealed that they are ditching their automatic commitment to terrestrial TV channels when it comes to England international matches.

These will be on the table as part of the FA's negotiating armoury when the bidding starts for the 2004-07 television rights. If Sky swoop for an exclusive deal, instead of the existing arrangement that allows the BBC to screen England games, the Sky-less majority of the nation will be separated from its team.

The FA Cup's presence on the terrestrial services is protected by law, but it could end up being the only live football available without forking out for a satellite dish. But even with the Cup, the FA are displaying the usual disregard for football fans, because they are considering allowing Cup-ties to be shown before 5pm on a Saturday. Channels could be offered a kick-off time of 4.45pm, which would directly affect attendances elsewhere.

This follows their policy this season of allowing all manner of kick-off times – we have had our first Sunday-evening Cup-tie – designed to suit only their television paymasters. The way they forced the semi-finals to be played in unsuitable venues at unsuitable times was another example of lack of consideration.

We are aware that the FA are short of money, we have the evidence of the seemingly endless stream of employees being bundled out of the doors of Soho Square. Some may feel that the departures are coming from the wrong end of the staff list, but their financial problems are clear. The short-term policy of giving in to television's demands with no thought of the long-term implications for the game at large may not be the right way to go about restoring their fortunes, though.

The television negotiations will no doubt contain many more surprises. It is forecast, for instance, that this new incursion into Saturday afternoons is a prelude to permitting a pay-per-view match at 3pm. This is bound to affect kick-off times and could lead to the total destruction of the tradition of Saturday football, already under severe threat.

One of the delights of the Easter weekend for the serious football follower was that we had that priceless rarity of a complete fixture schedule on Saturday afternoon. It makes such a difference to be able to study a full list of results and their effect on the divisional tables.

This weekend, we are back to the abnormal. Arsenal kicked off at Bolton at 12.30pm yesterday and, 26 hours after that match finishes, Manchester United will start their match at Tottenham at 4.05. How convenient for the travelling supporters of our two leading teams.

Even if you regard spectators as no more than a backdrop to the action, they comprise a very important backdrop, and treating them with contempt is a highly perilous practice.

We can't allow the television companies to escape a share of the blame for this race to fire football at us from every angle, but they have a different agenda to which they need to adhere.

At least, the commercial companies do. They have market share and advertisers to satisfy. They would make their grannies get up at 3am to watch Coronation Street if they thought it would bring in more money, so the greater good of football can expect no consideration.

The BBC, on the hand, have no such commercial imperative. They are supposedly there to serve the needs of the nation in return for licence fees. They may argue that it is their duty to fight for the biggest possible share of the television audience, but I am not sure that destroying the spectator base of our two major sports is an excusable side-effect.

Their attitude to rugby fans seems almost as bad as that of the rugby unions themselves. The latter's decision to cram the Six Nations' Championship into seven weeks served us up with five Sunday matches. Once more, the effect this would have on the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of the most loyal and best-behaved sports fans in the world was totally disregarded. They also agreed to allow the BBC to dictate that the Wales-England game should kick-off at 5.30pm on a Saturday.

The railways took the flak for refusing to run a service back to London, but the unions and the BBC should have shouldered the blame. The BBC say that a big rugby match at that time gives them an audience they will keep for the rest of the evening. Now they intend to have more than one 5.30 kick-off next year, and are letting it be known than they would like most internationals to start at that time. Never mind getting away from Cardiff on Saturday, the journey from Twickenham to the London rail terminals on Saturday evening would cause many problems.

To support this as a good idea, the BBC are claiming dishonestly that the 5.30 experiment was a great success. They claim that their viewing figures for Wales-England were bigger than those for the Ireland-England Grand Slam decider which kicked off at 2pm on a Sunday. What they neglected to point out was that whereas the Wales-England game was watched by both sets of fans on BBC, fans in the Republic would have watched the Ireland-England game on Irish television, so the BBC figures were bound to be lower.

To disrupt so many genuine supporters for such spurious reasons is a disgrace, and can only persuade people that they are better off staying at home.

Can it be wise to discourage the enthusiasm of your followers in this way? Football supporters' groups have been petitioning for a better deal over kick-off times and the subject was recently debated in Parliament, but it needs a fundamental change of the derisory attitude shown by both sets of authority. The use of sport to destroy our sporting habits is a grotesque irony, and the ravenous appetite of TV ought not to be so willingly fed.