Arsenal fans were protesting at the Emirates Stadium

So the mask has finally slipped, has it? The unexpected denouement revealed, and who on earth would have seen this plot twist coming?

Football, it turns out, was all about the money after all.

The ill-starred fans who hoped their team was somehow classier than the others, that their side was different and unique, rich in history and culture – and did we mention classy? – were left to discover this week that these now distorted institutions called football clubs were actually more interested in share-price graphs than beautiful goals.

The penny-drop moment, that the self-branded “big six” would be legging it to a new European Super League, led to fandomonium: imaginary season tickets were ripped up, shirts almost burned and people tweeted a lot about how long they had supported their clubs, as if the owners actually cared.

Chelsea fans, whose success was built on Roman Abramovich’s grotesque spending, were now the good guys. Supporters, straight-faced, were outside Stamford Bridge urging their team not to be so money-orientated.

Some hearty souls responded to Arsenal’s involvement, too, by arriving at the Emirates Stadium on Monday evening with cardboard placards that demanded their club was returned to the fans by their majority stakeholder, US business­man Stan Kroenke.

A moot point is how the support, frustrated by recent mediocrity, would have responded if Arsenal had said: “Oh, thanks for the invite, but no, you go ahead and give £3billion to Spurs and Chelsea instead.”

That’s a breakfast argument for another day and, to be fair, there have always been a reasonable number of Arsenal fans who have warned for years about the loss of a soul – that’s the word – in football.

They will tell you they were there for that last sit-in on the North Bank before the bulldozers arrived.

And they will tell you they were horrified when Sky Sports transformed it all – suddenly The Shamen were playing on the pitch as half-time entertainment – and ratcheted up the US sports experience.

There have been com­plaints about rising match­day prices and decisions that seemed more about the merchandise than the sport – even Arsenal’s club crest was changed so it looked better on a shop hanger. But the warnings from the scarfers went unheeded and they struggled to be heard.

When did you ever hear a Sky Sports pundit ever use their platform to suggest the sea change fans wanted?

And yet this week, on a channel you have to pay to watch – prohibitively so, for many – Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville were being cele­brated for their colourful rants – or “speaking well” – in opposition to the Super League plan.

Not a hint of irony.

When will any channel cut to these experts post-game for a ballsy discussion about how there is no real trickle down from the riches of the Premier League to the lower leagues, where clubs still have devoted fans and towns that almost revolve around them.

The same goes for politicians. Full of promises to move mountains to stop it happening this week – imagine if they treated all our woes with such gusto – but largely silent as the “cartels” spent at least the past 20 years smoking cigars on us.

Down the chain, many cherished clubs went to the wall.

However you feel about him, Jeremy Corbyn was probably the only frontbench politician to suggest the need for structural reforms during his time as Labour leader, calling for fans to be on the board and clubs not to be run by faraway investors with no link to the nearby community.

You might have heard such theories for other aspects of life, I can think of some.

But football at least – the people’s game – has been declared “saved” by the collapse of the European Super League.

If you really believed it was caused by fan power though, now is the time to ask for