THEY thought I was as late as that guy from accounts tackling in the fives. Rambling around the Camp Nou the other week, I was informed that Celtic had been and gone. “Don’t tell me the result,” I begged of the guy punting scarves. “I have Sky plussed it and I have a very good feeling about it all.”

He smiled enigmatically. Well, to be precise, he roared in my face and pointed me towards the train. “Loco, loco,” he repeated as I considered the prospective delights of Atletico Madrid visiting the champions.

It was the second time I had watched Atletico in a week. First, at the Vicente Calderon, they had tonked (Spanish colloquialism) Sporting Gijon 5-0, bursting into the game so savagely I looked around for a white towel to throw in on the visitors’ behalf. Then at Camp Nou, they deserved a point and duly attained one.

The quality was extraordinary. La Liga is magic on Sky but it is compelling in the suffocating warmth of an Iberian September.

Yet this is a land primed for revolution, at least in the football sense. The head honchos at La Liga are among those who are agitating for changes in the Champions League amid worries that the English Premier League is about to eat everything else in the world before emitting a huge burp that reeks of the end of a particularly Spanish tradition.

Watching Antoine Griezmann twice in four days only confirmed my far from original thesis that he is a potential “worldy”. He finishes with an abrupt certainty that borders on rudeness. He will not remain at Atletico for long, almost certainly not beyond this season. His likely destination is the EPL to an Arsenal or Manchester United. If so, he will thus leave a club that has recently reached two Champions League finals for a club with severely limited success recently in that competition.

In terms of quality of employer, then, it may be surmised that the Frenchman is on an escalator marked down. However, he will be offered the sort of wages once only the preserve of a plumber during the burst pipes calamity of 1981/82. I have no quarrel with that, which is good of me, and La Liga in general will see this as almost the natural order.

Atletico and other Spanish sides have been regularly plundered for their talent by the EPL and it is the Spanish who have been left with smiles on their faces as they add an “English tax” to any transfer to this septic isle.

But now there is a concern. It comes back to money, as almost every football story does. Barcelona and Real Madrid now see that the EPL has the money to recruit a genuine “worldy” from them, largely though increased TV revenue. This is not the way of the world. From Di Stefano and Kubala, through Maradona and Cruyff, to the pleasantly plump Ronaldo and his sculpted namesake, Real Madrid and Barcelona were where the biggest of stars went to shine.

Most did so, too, at their height of their career. Barca or Real would punt a player to the EPL but rarely a starter, never a “worldy”. But they now sense they may be vulnerable to English riches and the facility with which the clubs spend the TV money.

Once Neymar or Gareth Bale to, say, Manchester United would be greeted with the sort of scepticism that meets a Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees. But no longer. Once Lionel Messi to Manchester City would produce the sort of laughter provoked by meeting Billy Connolly in the boozer on that night he was joined by Richard Pryor and Robin Williams.

But now these are realistic propositions in terms of finance. Manchester United, for example, have an income of £500m a year with the vast Chinese market still to be fully exploited. The acquisition of a Bale or a Neymar would be both a strong business opportunity as well as a sporting investment.

It is why La Liga still flirts with the idea of more concessions for “big clubs” in the Champions League. A guaranteed four places in a 32-club competition was regarded as a successful sop. It may not be a long-term solution, however.

In both Barcelona and Madrid, I was constantly reminded – by vendors, by the variety of languages in the stands, by the constant burst of selfies – that football clubs are not just a modern, growing business but one that seeks to market itself worldwide. The clubs need the stars to become the face of the brand.

There may be only one more move in a Messi, Bale, Ronaldo or Neymar. The sums they would be offered would be astonishing, making Paul Pogba seem a buy from a Poundland aisle. But a business case could and would be made for this sort of expenditure. It would frank the buying club as a major world franchise. It would also be a huge moment for the EPL in terms of aiming to be the best, not just the richest league in the world.

It is why there are rumblings under a Spanish sun. Or, again, that might just be me pre-tapas.