Sheila O'Flanagan

It doesn't seem that long since every decision was a good one, every asset on the books performed, the media commentary was invariably favourable (even downright envious at times) and the results were undeniably spectacular.

Now there's nothing but criticism and blame - although sometimes it's hard to know who's really at fault. Pundits are now asking whether or not those at the top know what they're doing, whether they're in touch with what's going on and whether they shouldn't have retired before now. Well, goodness knows.

Manchester United have had their ups and downs in the past and they'll eventually play their way out of the disaster that's the beginning of their season, but whether they can reclaim what they undoubtedly feel is their right to the top spot is a difficult call.

Those expensive assets - Beckham, Van Nistelrooy, Barthez - haven't quite got the look of a telecom stock about them yet, but their prices are surely falling even if their wages were set in happier times. One of the greatest rules in trading is to get out while you're still in profit - if Alex Ferguson was to try and offload any of them tomorrow I wonder whether or not he'd break even on the deal. Because the transfer season was a complete washout with only the (hugely overrated) Rio Ferdinand causing the big cheque book to be waved.

OK, footie fans, I know I'm only a woman and therefore have no real appreciation of the defender's skills but he was wildly hyped at the World Cup only because England had done surprisingly well for a team that was generally pretty average. The hype was because England had had a good game against Argentina and they wanted heroes. Especially new heroes.

Anyway the whole football thing, which reached it's zenith around the same time as France Telecom was at it's peak, is beginning to fade rapidly and footballer's salaries have come back from the stratospheric to the mere atmospheric. Interestingly, in a recent documentary, David Beckham corrected the commentator who called him England's highest-paid footballer. "Off the pitch" Beckham told him, putting the pay he gets for his skills instead of for his endorsements clearly in its place.

Of course it's not just footballers who are weighed down by the continuing gloomy economic situation. Corporate executives, long used to smiling benignly at the football stars and wondering how anyone could exist on a few million a year, have also had to look at cuts in take-home pay. Or at least they're being asked to look at them.

The president of the New York Federal Reserve, Mr William McDonagh, recently gave a sermon at Trinity Church, which is located on Wall Street, in which he rounded on big corporations for the levels of pay that they had given to top executives.

According to McDonagh, the chief executive of an average publicly traded company was paid 42 times the average production worker's salary 20 years ago. Today that chief executive earns 400 times the average worker. I think that's obscene. McDonagh can't find the justification for it either.

As he said in his sermon: "I am old enough to have known both the CEOs of 20 years ago and those of today. I can assure you that we CEOs of today are not 10 times better than those of 20 years ago." So why did it happen? Because some people are inherently greedy. And all sense of loyalty seems to have disappeared out of the window.

Why else would Ronaldo have insisted on wanting to move to Madrid after Inter had paid him although he didn't play through injury? Ronaldo's price had been bid up after the World Cup, he could see the writing on the wall and he wasn't going to let the opportunity of a decent pay day get in the way of loyalty to his club.

Corporations insisted that high compensation was necessary to stop executives defecting to other companies, clearly fostering a belief that the only thing that could keep them at the walnut desk was money and not any sense of loyalty to the company or to the business in which it dealt - or to the employees who were earning such low bucks keeping the execs in the style to which they'd become accustomed.

Telecoms companies were great payers in the good times. Still are, I guess, even though most have offered shareholders the kind of results that would have had a Premiership manager dumped a long time ago. Are things changing?

The French government, holder of 55 per cent of France Telecom, got rid of chief executive Michel Bon, who presided over a massive loss of €12.2 billion for the first half of the year and an almost tidal wave of debt. A lot of this is due to France Telecom's investment in German mobile phone retailer MobilCom, which has gone disastrously wrong.

A few years ago Bon might have been able to sell MobilCom to another foolish telecom but, like the footie clubs, the money isn't there any more and MobilCom is in the twilight of its career unless the Germans can save it.

When things go wrong we always want someone to blame. Financial markets have variously blamed analysts, brokers, investment bankers, day-traders, internet geeks and fraudulent executives. They all have their place in the litany of disaster. I don't know whether my greatest distaste is for the fraudulent executives earning 400 times their average worker's pay or for the analysts who insisted this was a just reward for the ultimately equally fraudulent results that so many of the companies put out.

At least with a footballer it's fairly obvious when he's passed his sell-by date. Those searing runs up the pitch are suddenly more rare and take on the appearance of a leisurely stroll. Finding the back of the net with a well-placed strike becomes as difficult as finding the right euro change in your purse to buy anything under a fiver. In the case of a football manager it's results or you're fired.

Maybe that attitude will permeate the corporate world one day. And maybe Bolton will actually win the Premiership.