A sack of letters which had been gathering dust in the office in Dublin arrived this week. Sorting through them was like sifting through the personal effects of the deceased. Lots of invitations to press launches and press lunches long since past.

Several letters concerning the business of kicking Michelle de Bruin when she is down (most people wrote to say: "Go for it!") and a handful of epistles concerning Leeds United, a couple of them about Ian Harte and written in the manner of an Amnesty International pamphlet.

The Ian Harte letters were penned before the last series of internationals for which, of course, Harte wasn't originally selected and through which never managed to become a first choice.

I was advised, as one who had a lot to say in defence of Ian Harte during his tenure as a centre half, to speak out now as other (lesser) full backs were being preferred to him. There was a feeling too that given the many woes of Babb and Breen perhaps the "Ian Harte as centre half theory" was an idea whose time had come.

I took a glance at the Euro 2000 Group Eight table. A win over Macedonia will leave us in a position I genuinely didn't think possible at the start of the campaign.

The campaign itself? Won all the home games. Lost narrowly to a couple of the best teams in the world away from home. Maybe it would have been grand larceny if we had pulled a draw out of Zagreb, but it was grand larceny when we pulled a win out the England game in Stuttgart in 1988 and none of us cared.

I'd pick Ian Harte, but I'm not passionate about it. If we are approaching an era when good Premiership players are failing to make the Irish team, well and good. What do I know? I would have had Mark Kennedy sitting on the bench when he scored the winner against Yugoslavia and I'd have thrown away Kevin Kilbane's phone number after his competitive debut in Iceland.

Of more importance surely, but referred to only in one letter, is the dark news from Elland Road concerning the club's contraction of the Murdoch virus. It's not a case of full-blown Murdoch, which threatened Manchester United and laid low the Los Angeles Dodgers, Leeds United have caught a new and more insidious strain of the Murdoch virus. By consuming less than 10 per cent of the cells in the host body the Murdoch virus slowly inhibits the workings of the brain and meanwhile moves onto other host bodies where it does the same.

The Murdoch virus is defined as "an appreciation of no aspect of sport other than its profit-making possibilities accompanied by a willingness to exploit those possibilities ruthlessly". It is believed that the Murdoch virus will affect as many as eight different host bodies by the end of the season. Look out Spurs. Protect yourself Arsenal. Just say no Chelsea.

The infection at Leeds United was picked up in the usual manner, handling dirty money. Some £13 million of dirty money (extracted essentially from the roughing-up of trade unions and the mugging of sports fans, coupled with the peddling of the modern day opiates of the people: tabloid tittle tattle and TV sport) was left lying on the ground (that's less than 70 per cent of what it cost Granada to infect Liverpool in precisely the same way) and Leeds United stooped to pick it up.

Swiftly the club offered free placebos to those fans who persist in believing themselves to be the "lifeblood" of the club. The concerns of those who love Leeds were soothed by the announcement that the £13 million will be given to "buy players." Yippee!

I abandoned a long-time affection for the Los Angeles Dodgers when Murdoch annexed them and if I may be permitted to put on my boring old fart cap for a moment, I have followed Leeds United for 30 years, man and boy. I am now open to offers from other clubs. (Lower league side, nice personality, honest, seeks fan to share bad times. . .)

IN THE meantime, during our trial separation I take a passing interest in things Leeds. Will Dave O'Leary let me take his babies every second weekend? New plans for the team kit mean that Nike and News International will soon form a pincer movement of conglomerates buying into a club owned already by a media empire. Who will be the next player to do a Hasselbaink and skip the club? Where's the romance gone?

The News International move is easily the most disturbing (unless you are stitching Nike garments in Indonesia of course). In due time it will matter not just to Leeds fans, but to all of English soccer.

So here's some romance from the USA.

"The NFL we got into because it raised our network and our core television business to another level," said Chase Carey of News Corp. "We got into the regional sports business after seeing an opportunity that was underdeveloped and under-utilised."

Oooh! Makes the blood race doesn't it?

In recent years the Murdoch virus has ravaged American sport. Murdoch purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dodger Stadium for about $350 million. Owns 40 per cent of the New York Rangers (ice hockey), New York Knicks (basketball) and Madison Square Garden, 40 per cent of the LA Kings (hockey) and 10 per cent of the LA Lakers (basketball). All that while amassing the cable television rights to 75 teams in the NBA, NHL and baseball major leagues.

Soon the Murdoch virus will be so rampant that people all over the world will be shelling out significant parts of their income to watch disconnected millionaires play sport, they will be encouraged to do so by breathless media outlets themselves either infected by full blown Murdoch or suffering from Murdoch syndrome (a naive willingness to believe that money is always right) and the spectators will finally begin to suffer from Stockholm syndrome, the condition common among hostages whereby affection is focussed on the captor.

"Owning a team gives you some protection against competition coming into the market," John Mansell an expert in the field told Street and Smith's Sports Business magazine in an article on Murdoch recently. "You can use your ownership as leverage to extract a premium on rights fees."

That's how has it has all panned out in the States where everyone in sport works for the guy who shows sport. Big new stadiums go up, television sells sports like doctors prescribe Prozac, newspapers follow faithfully and every now and then somebody scratches their head in disillusionment and wonders why so few sports stars are true heroes and why so many indulge in behaviour which nobody can identify with.

I tell you I'm so busy saving the world, I don't have time to be worrying about Ian Harte.