We're not watching anymore

I suppose it was inevitable given the fast-moving 'digital revolution' and the way in which the web rules over everything.

Plus, it's already happened in other areas of interest such as music... but, football - really?!

Yes, the news that England's match in Ukraine this Saturday will only be shown live on the internet - and for a fee - has not been warmly-received by fans. Rightly so too in my opinion.

OK, so England have already qualified for next year's World Cup finals, but this is still our national team playing a competitive match and hugely popular with football fans, as viewing figures show. We love to watch Rooney, Gerrard et al put on the white shirt and (hopefully) play with pride! We're on quite a roll at the moment too.

However, the 'powers that be' - whoever they are, and apparently it's not the Football Association - have deemed that supporters must fork out at least a fiver for the privilege. And it won't be shown in pubs - where most England fans (who aren't travelling) watch matches because of the atmosphere. There will be grumpy landlords up and down the country this week. Some cinemas have been selected to show the game - but can you really see football fans wanting to do this?

It's really sad that none of the terrestrial channels wanted to show this match. It came down to money apparently, but I think England supporter is right when he says, "Fifa and Uefa should insist as a condition of entry that all nations sell their games to terrestrial stations, whether it's the home or away market."

And all this in a country where, it was announced last week, there is a relatively poor broadband service (we're behind the likes of Bulgaria and Latvia in terms of quality and speech). You can see it now: you tune in to watch and the little circle spins on a black background or England are about to score on Saturday and the screen freezes. This won't work - not yet anyway.

I hope England get another win on Saturday to keep up their great record - but I won't be watching.