PLATFORM:Last Saturday Southampton played Crystal Palace at St Mary's stadium on the first day of the new football season. It was an okay game and Palace won 4-1, a result that flattered them.

The game had a broader significance, however - one that highlights the gap between soccer's haves and have-nots.

Both clubs were relegated from the Premier League in 2005, meaning that the parachute payments each received ran out this summer.

Parachute payments are the financial device used to help clubs bridge the gap between the top rung of the Premiership and the lower Championship. They amount to about £6.3 million (€9.3 million) a year for the two years following relegation.

For both clubs this money is the difference between profit and loss. For Southampton, in particular, these are worrying times, highlighting the flip side of the club's ambition to play in the big league.

St Mary's stadium on the south coast is one of the best stadiums in England. It was built to host Premiership football and, during the building of Wembley, was a temporary home to the England team.

Last season, Southampton lost in the play-offs, a missed penalty kick condemning them to another year on the outside looking in. After the game on Saturday, Southampton manager George Burley spoke of a "difficult season ahead", and there were several references to "belt-tightening".

There may be another way out, however. Speculation suggests Southampton will be taken over by a "billionaire", with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen regularly name-checked as being in the frame.

The first task on any new chairman's to-do list will be to secure one of the 20 places in the Premier League because, for clubs like Southampton, life outside of the Premiership is becoming unsustainable.

The shadow of Leeds United, falling like a stone through the divisions, hangs over their every move: damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The last round of media rights deals, completed in May, will broaden the gap further - a point recognised by the Premier League's decision to pay a £90 million "solidarity package" over three years to the lower leagues.

Money has always a played a central role in the Premier League story, and this year is no different. Premiership clubs have spent more than £350 million on transfer fees for new players this summer. Roy Keane's Sunderland, fresh out of the Championship, spent £9 million on a goalkeeper. Lucas Neill, a journeyman Aussie full-back, chose West Ham over Liverpool when the London club agreed to pay him £70,000 a week. John Terry, England and Chelsea captain, raised the bar in terms of wages, netting £130,000 a week in his new club contract.

The source of Neill, Terry and Keane's wealth is TV money, notably that of Sky and now Setanta, which paid for exclusive live rights for the next three years. Overall, the media income for the Premier League from all sources sits at £2.7 billion.

The deal covering the Republic replicates the agreement for the UK, with Setanta taking two of six packages (46 games) and Sky taking the remaining four (92 games). Sky has previously had a monopoly in both territories.

Additionally, Setanta has landed the rights to a seventh package - unavailable in the UK under a Uefa ruling - comprising 30 to 33 games broadcast at 3pm on Saturdays.

The total raised by the three-year deal, which begins with the 2007/2008 season, was £82 million.

These sums are testimony to the way the league has been packaged and marketed. We are told often, mostly by Sky, that the Premiership is the best league in the world. This is debatable, but there's no doubt that the strategy has worked.

However, for the first time since its inception in 1992, the Premier League brand has started to take some serious knocks. Thaksin Shinawatra's £82 million takeover of Manchester City has appalled Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Dawn raids on three football clubs saw computer files and other information relating to transfer activity taken away from the grounds of Glasgow Rangers, Newcastle and Portsmouth.

And the transfer of Carlos Tevez from West Ham to Manchester United took up acres of newsprint, with police in Brazil issuing an arrest warrant for the player's agent, Kia Joorabchian, who claimed ownership of the player. Tevez's goals saved West Ham from relegation, but should he have been on the field in the first place?

The Premier League has a huge PR machine at its disposal. It is employed to give a positive spin to such issues and it has been kept busy over the past few months. The broader concern is that the negative headlines will do real damage to the Premiership brand, the same one that has reaped the financial bonanza of the past 15 years.