On Wednesday, Levante’s starting XI took the pitch before their La Liga clash with Deportivo La Coruña. Deportivo kicked off, Sergio made a run into the opposing half and Levante . . . did nothing. They just stood there in a line, arms linked, just inside their half.

Sergio sprinted, undisturbed, into the Levante penalty area and, faced with an empty net and no opponent within 30 yards, blasted it into the stands as the Riazor erupted into applause. He then hugged his opponents individually. The match restarted in earnest with a Levante goal kick.

It was all part of a protest by Levante players over unpaid wages. With the club some £14 million in debt and the shareholders locked in a legal dispute, pay cheques have been few and far between. A number of players reportedly have built up huge overdrafts and some have had to sell their cars. The next day there was an angry confrontation between the players and Pedro Villarroel, the majority shareholder. It nearly came to blows after Villarroel — who claims that he is not responsible for much of the debt — said: “Do you believe in God? Yes? Well, then you’re going to hell.”

When it comes to economic matters, sympathy for top-flight professional footballers is rare. But, in fact, the Levante case shows that they are as vulnerable as the rest of us when it comes to their employers’ bankruptcy or financial mismanagement: whether or not they get left with nothing largely depends on labour law and the strength of their union.

In England, it is less of an issue because the Professional Footballers’ Association is so powerful. Elsewhere, it is a different story. One agent told me that, when dealing with a certain club, he tells his players to plan on getting only nine monthly pay cheques.

It seems extraordinary that clubs should get into this situation, yet in some countries football as an industry is only marginally more regulated than drug dealers on a corner. Levante’s predicament is partly a function of a botched television deal, but largely a case of reckless overspending. Uefa has introduced “licences” for clubs in European competition to stop them overextending. If your books are not in order, you do not get to play European football. Similar systems exist in the Bundesliga and Serie A, with varying degrees of enforcement.

What is frustrating about this is that it does not need to be this way. Leagues or FAs cannot turn into fully-fledged financial auditors, but they could turn the screw on the clubs. For example, if a team’s wage bill for the season is £30 million, the governing bodies could insist that £15 million must be kept in an investment account. If it does not, a points penalty could kick in. And clubs’ debt could also be more closely monitored: if it rises above a certain percentage of turnover, for example, that club could also be punished with a sanction.

Overspending is cheating, plain and simple. And it is the kind of cheating where the victim has no redress. For example, AS Roma’s debts are close to £300 million, which is nearly twice the club’s turnover. Much of that was accumulated around the turn of the millennium, when they spent heavily in the transfer market and won Serie A. If Roma go bankrupt, it will not be much of a consolation to the clubs who acted responsibly.

Or take Levante. Much of their debt was generated over the past two seasons, when they spent money to gain promotion to La Liga and avoid relegation last season. “Living the dream” probably meant that someone who should have been relegated, was not. And some other club who should have stayed up last season did not.

It amounts to “financial doping”. The spending of money you do not have is as performance-enhancing as nandrolone, if not more. If Levante go under their players and supporters will get lots of sympathy. But they certainly will not be the only victims.

Fifa’s good Korea move

Kudos to Fifa for not bowing to political pressure. North Korea and South Korea are in the same World Cup qualifying group. When the North hosted the South in March, the match was played in Shanghai, rather than Pyongyang, because the North Koreans refused to allow South Korea to display their flag or play their national anthem because technically the countries are at war.

Fifa held its ground and told the North Koreans that, without a flag or an anthem, it would not allow the game to go ahead, so the fixture was moved to China.

A few weeks ago, however, North Korea demanded that the return leg in Seoul should also be played in a neutral venue, even though South Korea had no objection to the North’s flag and anthem. Fifa stood its ground.

North Korea’s hang-ups over the South’s flag and anthem (and, indeed, their very existence) is its problem. If it wants to give up the right to play at home so it does not have to listen to Aegukga, the South’s anthem, so be it. But it cannot force South Korea to do the same.

Pointless punishment?

So FC Porto, along with two other Portuguese clubs, have been found guilty of attempting to coerce referees during the 2003-04 season, when they won the title under José Mourinho (who is in no way implicated). Their punishment? Well, they were docked six points this season (which is irrelevant, given that they had won the title and were on top by 20 points) and fined about £120,000. Jorge Pinto da Costa, the Porto chairman, has been barred from sitting at pitchside for the next two years. (Yes, I know, why was he there in the first place? Don’t ask . . .) Fair punishment? You be the judge.

Porto were found guilty of influencing the referee in two matches in which they gained a total of four points. Given that they won the title by eight points that season, it makes you wonder why they bothered.