I recall an English club chairman indignantly saying some 20 years ago that the fans were mad if they believed their ticket money paid the players' wages.
It was a classic case of someone knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. True, in cold, economic terms he might have been correct. Money pours in from other sources - TV rights, sponsorship deals, corporate boxes and so on, but take the fans away from the stadium and all those other revenue streams instantly dry up.
That is because the football supporter is part of the show. Without the atmosphere created by the fans, the TV rights and the corporate boxes lose their value. The supporter is not a spectator. He/she is a participant, whose actions have an effect on what happens on the field.
This explains why Argentina coach Diego Maradona was so keen to switch the venue for Saturday's crunch World Cup qualifier at home to Brazil.
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A few month's back on Radio 5's World Football Phone-In (Friday night/Saturday morning, normally between 2.30 am and 4am if you care to join us), the excellent analyst of European football, Andy Brassell, was talking about the first Champions League game he attended in Italy.
He had a shock. An English team was involved, but the match stewards could not speak English. In my wanderings around South America, however, I would get a similar shock if I saw such a thing as a steward.
I have often put forward the view that part of the explanation for the extraordinary global success of football is that the game is a universal language which we speak with different accents.
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The big kick-off to a new season is always exhilarating, fuelled by the energy of fans flocking back to their spiritual home after more than three months of absence.
The regularity and depth of this contact between fans, stadium and team means that the club game will always be football's central experience.
But maybe a tilt is taking place in the direction of national teams. It could just be that this is World Cup season. Or perhaps because I'm briefly back in England at a moment when there is a .
But it might be something deeper.
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Twenty years ago the idea that a top flight English club's record signing coming from Ecuador would have been utterly inconceivable.
Two decades ago there was hardly a foreigner to be found. These days - thanks to the extraordinary globalisation of the game - supporters of even lesser clubs can receive a global geography lesson merely by plotting the birth places of the first team squad.
Perhaps the more obscure side to the transfer of is the remarkable rise of the Ecuadorian game. In the 2006 World Cup they reached the last 16. Go back 20 years and they were minnows in their own continent.
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In major tournaments earlier this decade, the Brazilian press consistently irritated me by heaping praise on the side. They're much better than they were, they've made great technical progress, it's no longer just kick and rush - that type of thing.
Firstly the pallid, stagnant football produced by the side in its three big tournaments was unworthy of such plaudits.
Secondly, the observation was plain wrong. In terms of the skill level, the desire to impose themselves on a game and even a sense of joyful expression, Sven's sides could not hold a candle to those served up by an illustrious predecessor - .
So why the confusion?
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I cover South American football from Brazil. There's a wealth of talent and a rich culture - a fascinating continent to follow football.
