COMMENT: So what do you get for breaking ranks? For speaking out? And against your own self interest? Well if you're Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman, you get misrepresented. Ridiculed. Your warning for fans of clubs big and small reduced to a single word - out of context - pedaled by the infantile...
Many will have heard last week about Buck's speech at Stamford Bridge. But not the detail. Instead it will have been reduced to one word: "unwashed". But even that was misreported.
The previous week Buck was being celebrated. The American handing out free packets of potato chips to away fans for Chelsea's Europa League tie at PAOK. Buck had learned many had been forced to wait for over four hours for their bus to the Toumba stadium, so took it upon himself to hand out snacks to the delight of the Blues support.
So how does a man with that side of him become an arrogant ogre? With such contempt for the "unwashed"? The answer is, he doesn't. Those actions in Greece were of Buck. The words attributed to him came via the U-bend of the reporting press.
Thursday was a clarion call from Buck. And one you'd never get from his peers. Not from Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. Nor from Josep Maria Bartomeu. The Glazers. None of 'em. FFP. UEFA's Financial Fair Play laws. They were shutting the door on the ambition of smaller clubs. The dreams of their fans. The elite - of which Buck rightly pointed out Chelsea are among - were pulling up the draw bridge. Slamming the door shut on those coming up behind them.
Hang on. You didn't get that? Only the bit about joining "the unwashed"? Well, here's Buck in his own words...
"The dream in England is that if you are a supporter of a [fifth-tier] team is that someday you will win the Premier League," Buck said.
"One of the minuses [of FFP] is that dream is now over. That is not possible with Financial Fair Play.
"What Chelsea did in 2003, what Man City did five years later [after being bought by a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family], that is virtually impossible to do under Financial Fair Play."
Essentially, Buck is conceding Chelsea were lucky. As were Manchester City. There was no FFP 15 years ago. Roman Abramovich could spend money to accumulate. On the manager. The squad. The stadium. Marketing. He could make mistakes. Learn from them. And simply go again. All without the regulations which would today hold him back. And - with the approval of the likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona - keep Chelsea in their place.
Instead, the Blues are now part of that elite. But rather than protect what's theirs - as we see from Bayern and the fallen giants of Italy - Buck used his platform at last week's Leaders in Sport Business Summit to lament the chipping away of what makes the culture of English football so unique.
As it stands today - and if UEFA and the elite get their way - Wolves, thanks to owners Fosun, could be the last English club we see come from outside the Premier League to threaten the status quo. Every club in the Football League would love to be under the management of such owners.
But as ambitious as Fosun are, they're finding their wings clipped thanks to FFP regulations. "It's going to take some time to catch up," says managing director Laurie Dalrymple, referring to UEFA's restrictions.
FFP was sold as being the great equaliser. Instead, ambitious (and successfully run) clubs like Wolves are competing against the more established with one arm behind it's back - and all thanks to artificially imposed laws.
But what of Buck's "unwashed" comment? The insinuation being he didn't want Chelsea mixing with the lesser rans. Only that's clearly not what Buck was suggesting. Again, it was a warning. A warning for every club that falls under UEFA's regulatory powers. The mediocre will become the norm. It'll be the stuff of American sports. With it's 'participation trophy' culture of salary caps, drafts and dulling of standards. Every club will become one great group of "unwashed".
Again, in full context:
"In terms of competitive balance, which is always viewed in a negative way, I personally believe for the development of football, marquee clubs and marquee players are important," Buck said.
"It is important in developing fan base. It is important encouraging young people to engage in this sport and it also important in terms of the large clubs having the ability to put a lot of money into good causes which they do.
"So I am not, as a general proposition, in favour of dumbing down the large clubs in order to make all clubs the great unwashed. They have done that in the U.S. over the last 20 years and it has been to the detriment particularly of baseball... I just don't think it works for the long term."
This was a speech about the artificial dulling of ambition. Of curbing the dreams of fans hoping their club to be the next City, Wolves or even Bournemouth.
Buck wasn't mocking anyone or any club.
It was a speech which deserved far better than to be misrepresented as it was - particularly by those whom claim to speak for the average fan.