Pat Nevin believes that the high-stakes poker at play with the European Super League could destroy the fabric of football around the world.
As all involved look to gauge the ramifications of a shift in the nature of continental football, Nevin believes that both sides have skipped straight to the end of an arms race.
"When someone pulls out a knife a knife, you pull out a knife; someone pulls out a gun, you pull out a gun; when someone pulls out a nuclear warhead, you pull out a nuclear warhead. That is where we are.
"They have just gone straight nuclear, which is what is so shocking about it.
"The problem with these nuclear stand-offs is that someone better blink at some point because if they don't, the destruction that could happen is extraordinary to the world game of football. It is actually absolutely extraordinary what could happen to it.
"It doesn't bear thinking about - it really doesn't."
Super League backlash
Nevin drew on personal experience to explain what might be going on between the rest of the Premier League and the six clubs involved.
"I was in Scotland and I was the chief executive of Motherwell - Celtic and Rangers told everybody they wanted to move to England. I sat there in the meeting with the other ten saying 'Tell them to get stuffed then, tell them to go.'
"They were going nowhere, they had nowhere to go. I had some contacts down there and they didn't want to touch them with a barge pole. We had a bigger gun than them, we just didn't know it."
Nevin believes that the Premier League may be in a stronger position than they may think, in that they have nothing to lose.
"If you lose those top six and they go and play in a Super League with a 'half team' for the Premier League, then their product is maybe not dead but completely diminished.
"The Premier League might potentially tell them to get lost."
What outcome does he see transpiring?
"I don't know who is brave enough. The six may blink, the 14 may blink. The nightmare scenario is that neither does. That is a possibility. That is the horror.
"It is back to the Cuban Missile Crisis again, someone better blink otherwise we're all going to get stuffed if they don't.
"But that is a long way down the line, we've got a lot to get through in the meantime."
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