There's a new word in football and it is creating a new game before our eyes. It's not all that new - maybe five years old - but in those five years elite club football in England has changed beyond recognition. What's more, the meaning of the game has changed with it. The word in question is “owner”.

And it was the word “owner” that dominated the weekend's proceedings in the Barclays Premier League. First there was the billionaire v billionaire match as Sheikh Mansour took on Roman Abramovich in a match formerly known as Manchester City v Chelsea. The same afternoon there were demonstrations against Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, the owners of Liverpool, and more against Mike Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United. If you thought that becoming an owner was a Pullman-class route to popularity, think again.

The Premier League is turning into the America's Cup, a yachting event that reflects not sporting excellence but the depth of the pockets of the owners. The America's Cup matters only to a few buffs and a handful of billionaires. Is football heading the same way? The demonstrations at Anfield and St James' Park show the level of resistance to this possibility. Football people want football to be what it used to be, something that represents not the owner but the community from which it springs.

But these days are gone. I remember Sir Jack Hayward talking to me about his acquisition of Wolverhampton Wanderers. He wanted to be seen not as an extraordinary benefactor, but as a logical extension of the ordinary fan base. After all, many times he had been passed overhead down the terraces with all the other little lads so he could stand at the front.

“When people stop me, I say, ‘Don't thank me. You'd do it, too.'” he said. It was his contention that buying the club you supported as a boy was the natural destiny of any person of considerable wealth. It was part of the traditions of football.

No longer. Football teams are a medium for fame and name if you're Sheikh Mansour and Abramovich, or a business proposition if you're Hicks and Gillett. The teams on the pitch represent not local patriotism but imported egomania. Thus football is slowly losing touch with those who love it the most.

Football is like a bird attached to a brick by a strong piece of elastic. The bird is flying skywards with all its might and there are only two things that can happen. Either the elastic will break or the brick will hit the bird up the arse. The bird is the billionaire owner, the brick is the supporters.

Day the talking stopped and Murray became his own boss

When Andy Murray analyses his career, he will come to the conclusion that the best thing that happened to him was when the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) gave him Brad Gilbert, the highly rated American, as a personal coach.

Right now Murray will object to this because he took against Gilbert in a big way and sacked him, leaving the LTA with an overpaid embarrassment on its hands. But I am a firm believer in the importance of the good negative.

Gilbert's incessant and inescapable talking drove Murray to distraction. But it also drove him to an understanding of the difference between what he needed and what other people thought he needed. After he got rid of Gilbert he set up his own team.

It was at once obvious from the choice of coach - Miles Maclagan, who had a classic “Plucky Brit” tennis career, highest world ranking No172 - that the most important thing about the team was that there was no doubt as to who was in charge. And it wasn't Maclagan.

Murray had taken responsibility for himself. That means, first of all, that you have to be extremely careful not to mess it up, or people will say, “I told you so.” So Murray has worked on his fitness, his strength and endurance and he has pushed himself harder than Gilbert would have dared.

Murray is the only person Murray will take it from; after all, you don't find submissive characters in grand-slam men's singles finals. Murray's triumph in reaching the final of the US Open last week is one of self-determinism. And it would certainly have taken longer - had it happened at all - without Gilbert to force him there.

You may almost think that the LTA knew what it was doing - but let's not stray into the realms of fantasy.

Armstrong has few issues, he's just bored

People have been trying to analyse what lies behind Lance Armstrong's announcement that he will come back into professional cycling and seek to win his eighth Tour de France. Some suggest that he wants to have another attack on the discredited suggestions in L'Équipe that he had done it on dope. Others contend that he wants to say something about cancer - as if he hadn't done that many times over, as a man who recovered from testicular cancer.

But the real reason is obvious, and it is the same for every mad athlete who ever retired and then made a comeback. He's bored. Nothing can replace sport in the life of a champion. As a champion, you have something to do every day and a reward of earth-shattering proportions at the end of it. What can possibly replace that?

Muhammad Ali, Sir Steve Redgrave (did Armstrong say that anybody who saw him on a bike again could shoot him?), Bjorn Borg, Paul Gascoigne, Lester Piggott, Mark Todd - there's no end to them. Those of us who watch it shout: “Don't do it.” But those who actually do it know that retirement is a form of death.

War, what is it good for in Ryder Cup?

As the Ryder Cup thrillingly draws nigh once again, the commentators are trying to sex it up by stirring up the hate. Paul Azinger, the United States captain, hates Nick Faldo, the Europe captain, and went on telly to say so. Many of these observers want to recreate the spirit of those occasions - both, er, coincidentally on American soil - when hatred dominated at the War on the Shore and the Battle of Brookline.

Sport is not war, it is not a battle and hatred is not an essential or even a legitimate part of it. To pretend so may put a few bums on seats in the short term, but it destroys sport in the long term. Golf prides itself on its decorum - apart from when there's good money on offer for bad vibes and bad behaviour.