It’s not just every football association in the world which is watching aghast at the European Super League project, but just about every professional sports governing body.

For if the Super League eventually goes its own way then what is to stop any group of like-minded clubs simply setting up their own competitions in whichever sport they currently play? The answer to that question for most governing bodies is simple – there’s little they can legally do.

You may think it is a long hop from the Super League to the Scottish Rugby Union, and it is, but the problem ultimately boils down to the same for the Dirty Dozen of European football as it is for the SRU – money, and how to get hands on as much of it as they can.

Let’s call the Dirty Dozen for what they are – rich, thieving capitalists who don’t care about their fans or traditions and who are only interested in grubby cash. I don’t think the SRU’s professional executives are cut from the same cloth, and I’m pretty certain the SRU Board and Council are not in it for personal gain, but the issues are the same, namely who controls the game, and who benefits from the moolah.

For instance, why is Uefa allowed to be the governing body of the game in Europe but also allowed to own and direct its most lucrative asset, the Champions League? There’s where the problem lies because as far as I can see, the new Super League’s promoters have not broken any rules. Sure, there must be all sorts of contract laws being bent or broken, but they do have the right to form a league and here’s the rub – only if Uefa approves it. And if Uefa doesn’t do so, they will be in court on a restraint of trade case quicker than a Peter Lorimer thunderbolt.

I actually find a lot of the brouhaha quite funny. In has blundered Boris Johnson threatening all sorts of hell and damnation to the Dirty Half-Dozen English clubs, when Uefa’s rules strictly forbid the intervention of any Government in the business of football. How’s that going to work, Boris?

Oh, and Boris and his Brexiteer chums are now trying to help Uefa which, though based in Switzerland, is very much subject to European Union precepts and laws. Boris riding to Europe’s rescue – you couldn’t make it up. For once, though, apart from threatening all sorts of impossible reprisals, he is right about something, the greedy nature of the cartel, which is what the Super League basically is.

Uefa has known this breakaway or some other sort of new cartel has been coming for years. As far as I can see, the closed nature of the ‘no relegation’ Super League makes it a cartel itself, and that’s illegal, too.

It will all end up in the courts, and then this scandal will be exposed for what it really is – dirty rotten scoundrels trying to get a bigger share of football’s billions.

The SRU is actually WORSE than Uefa in one respect. Football’s governing body doesn’t actually own any clubs, unlike the Murrayfield mob who own, direct and control Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors. The SRU simply does not allow any club other than those two to take part in the Pro-14 never mind the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.

Take this ‘for instance’. Let’s say a multi-billionaire decides to invest heavily in a club in his old home town – we’ll call it Hawgalrose. He or she imports the best talent in the world, and Hawgalrose proceeds to beat every other club in Scotland by an average score of 90-0. He challenges the SRU to let his club play Edinburgh or the Warriors and they reluctantly agree because the broadcasters have bunged them a million or so to help keep Murrayfield in top notch claret. Hawgalrose wins each match by a much closer margin of five or six tries to one, but the point is made – Hawgalrose is the best team in Scotland by a distance.

But Edinburgh and Glasgow are SRU creations, and will be the clubs advanced into various competitions for as long as they are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the SRU.

Uefa is in a terrible position at the moment precisely because it owns the Champions League. One day the SRU will be challenged about its status as governing body and club owner, and it will be very interesting to hear Murrayfield’s defence.

The SRU Council will hear the situation regarding the Scottish Government’s £15m grant to help rugby in Scotland through the pandemic. My colleague big Davie Barnes brilliantly exposed the situation yesterday, and the answers from chief executive Mark Dodson better be bloody good.

Clubs could start by asking how much has gone to Edinburgh and the Warriors because like the Super League and so many other sporting cartels, it’s all about money in a self-preservation society.