This most onanistic of male group sport/money fantasies is common among boys of all ages, beginning from the moment they learn . . . after your favourite striker is traded . . . that the management of their favourite club is, in fact, fallible. "We could do better, " you nod.

Even after a dozen pints, however, it will eventually dawn on most people that their preferred finance option . . . Lotto winnings, the 250-1 shot running in the third race or getting all the lads from capital markets to pool this year's bonus . . . is not likely to happen.

Perversely, the more wellfinanced and clever you are, the more you can invest . . .

and possibly lose . . . on the dream. If it's profit you're after, you'd be better off running a lemonade stand or selling sand to the Saudis.

Hence in recent times the descent onto English Premiership clubs of billionaire enthusiast investors. American Malcolm Glazer picked up Manchester United as a bauble; Russian Roman Abramovich seized Chelsea.

Many of the clubs have been in less than rude health.

Some 22 British football clubs floated on the stock exchange in the last decade.

A majority of those delisted, either as a result of financial woes or being taken private.

Sunderland did particularly poorly. Shares went on sale in December 1996 at 585p, valuing the club at £62m and raising £10.7m that went towards building the Stadium of Light. When the club delisted, the share price was at 31.4p.

Chairman Bob Murray, who made a fortune selling kitchens and became a tax exile in the Channel Islands, was infected by the dream and took over the chairmanship in 1986 (from Tom Cowie, who made a fortune selling cars. ) But Sunderland's yo-yoing between relegation and promotion had disastrous financial effects.

Now the club is some £40m in debt, relegated again from the Premiership, its only real assets its 43,000-seat stadium and its die-hard supporters whose faith keeps those seats surprisingly filled. Murray's had enough.

So up steps big Niall Quinn with a private consortium and a £60m ( 87m) bid, his Surf-fresh shirt looking spiffy as he was hailed a conquering hero at Sunderland's 3-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal.

But Quinn reportedly was there to show his investors around. Not JP McManus, John Magnier and Dermot Desmond, as had been speculated, but property tycoons Sean Dunne ( 200m to scoop AIB's Ballsbridge site), Sean Mulryan ( 22bn Ballymore Properties) and Jack Tierney(Faxhill Homes, of Michael Lowry houseextension fame).

But here's the thing. Have Dunne, Mulryan and co caught the footie flu? It doesn't make sense. Mulryan in particular is thought to be more fond of Gaelic. What if Niall's buddies aren't in it for the footie at all?

What if, bucking the trend of recent investors, their real aim is a property play?

Sunderland's Stadium of Light was itself a property play, swapping a residential site area for one out of town, and a large chunk of Stadium Park remains undeveloped. Irish money has already snapped up 50 flats in Sunderland's downtown, and England's northeast is awash with Irish property cash.

Sunderland football club was in 2002 named the preferred developer of the rest of the Stadium Park site.

Other areas of Wearside and Tyneside are undergoing regeneration. Could Dunne & co see a different route to goal?

A British business school recently suggested that it was economic for just 16 of 92 English clubs to maintain their grounds, that 73% of an average club's assets is locked into property, and most should sell off the pitch for development and share regional stadiums.

That might not be in store for Sunderland, but whatever Quinn's investors have in mind, one dream seems unlikely to resurface . . .

bringing a decent British club to Dublin.

It's been years since U2 manager Paul McGuinness pined to make Wimbledon FC the Dublin Dons, or DKM economist Colm McCarthy tried to bring Clydebank over from Scotland.

Just maybe . . . the potential property play behind Quinn's Sunderland bid aside . . . the whole affair could reignite the dream of proper Dublin football. Besides being an ideal anchor tenant to make a redeveloped Lansdowne Road a more viable proposition, it could end the national shame of emigration in its one remaining category . . . footballers.

And we could do it.

Seriously. Forget putting that 5bn in SSIA money about to come onstream into pensions or property in Uzbekistan. Let's get together, buy out Malcolm Glazer, make Man United into Dub United. Seriously.

We could do better.