LAST weekend, tens of thousands of football supporters were expected to greet as heroes the players running out in front of them, and to clap and cheer those players on to even greater efforts.

Yet the club which sent those players out onto the pitch, and the manager who wrote their names on the teamsheet, knew that some of them were implicated in an alleged gang rape. How degrading for the fans. Did the club really expect its supporters to cheer: "C'mon you roasters."

At the same time, Manchester United was mobilising its lawyers. Rio Ferdinand, its record £30m signing, had failed to take a mandatory drugs test. In any other industry, he would have been suspended immediately; in any other sport, he would have been facing a two-year ban.

But United went to law to get him off. The club effectively said: "Sod morality, sod football, sod England, we have to save the share price." In a week when the club has been at the centre of takeover speculation, there was no way the balance sheet could afford to show that its biggest asset had been de-commissioned.

Since the story broke, Ferdinand has been desperately trying to portray himself as the most fervently anti-drugs person imaginable. But clearly not fervent enough for him to remember his appointment when he had other exciting things to do - like moving house and going shopping.

Nevertheless, the England players took his case up. This should surprise no one. These are the same players who dive and cheat and get each other sent off. They surround the referee when a decision goes against them, swearing at him in an ugly attempt to bully him into submission.

Last weekend, 17-year-old superkid Wayne Rooney put in a cameo appearance as substitute for Everton. He spent 35 minutes spewing asterisks at the referee, and every child who watched the Premiership highlights at 9.30am on Sunday would have lip-read them. Mr Rooney will probably play for England today.

This week, the players applied their bullying tactics to the Football Association when its decision about their shopping-mad mate Rio went against them. Fortunately, the FA stood up to their bullying and the nation has, genuinely, turned against them.

You can tell that the nation has turned because in The Sun yesterday there was a cleverly-placed piece of PR on David Beckham's behalf, designed to distance the England captain from the threatened boycott.

"Becks raged: halt strike" screamed the headline, and it told how our hero had had a "2am bust-up with ringleader Gary Neville".

So Beckham appears prepared to sacrifice Neville, who was best man at his wedding, in order to curry favour with the book-buying British public.

Despite the blatant PR, though, the British public should remember that it was Beckham who applauded the England followers who had travelled to Macedonia against the express wishes of everyone who had a genuine interest in England staying in the tournament.

Clubs and players alike believe they are bigger than the morality that keeps society together and the rules that more forcefully stick it together.

For the first time in my life, when England run out tonight I shan't be wildly cheering them on. Of course I can't bear to think of them losing, but defeat and failure to qualify may be the only way to prick their arrogant bubble.