Some day in the near future a footballer — or, more likely, a group of footballers — might do something so gross that even the game’s blind apologists, the managers and chairpersons, the agents and all the talking heads who are part of this ailing industry, will be stunned into silence.

If the rumours coming from diverse sources inside and outside White Hart Lane this week are true, if Glenn Hoddle’s days at Tottenham are numbered, we will have to look no further than north London for confirmation that romance in football counts for very little any more.