My issue with the Premier League goes beyond Everton's points deduction - and it's ruining football

The Premier League’s dealings with Everton have come under a lot of scrutiny this season, and rightly so.

For me, there is yet another reason for frustration - the league, and wider football’s, support of the grassroots game.

We have got so much fantastic talent on Merseyside, it is well-established how the region is a production line of players for all levels of the professional game.

But this is about so much more than setting up opportunities for youngsters to grow in the sport, it is also about creating and supporting access to what football should be about - fun.

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It feels easy to forget that football is, more than anything, about having a good time. This is a season in which Everton supporters have had to learn about football finance and complicated spending rules in order to understand what is happening to their beloved club. It is a season in which fans of all Premier League clubs have had celebrations and meltdowns stopped by often lengthy VAR checks that few fans in the stands, if any, understand the reasons for in real-time.

That removal of fun from the game extends right to its very foundations. I speak to managers of local teams and some of their sides have played just eight, nine, 10 games this season because the facilities cannot cope with the most predictable of problems - the British weather. There have been so many wet weekends this winter and it is the coaches, who dedicate their free time, and the players, who lose out. Those youngsters are missing the opportunity to