The average Premiership footballer will take home more than �1million a year. In fact, going by some of the wage figures being spun these past few weeks, some very average Premiership footballers will take home a lot more than that.

Just a few examples of the messy goings on across the water. Darren Bent being courted by West Ham and offered somewhere between �50k-�75k a week, depending on who you believe. Scott Parker was brought from Newcastle with the promise of something similar.

Andy Johnson and Craig Bellamy have been offered even more to go to Upton Park and this is all on the back of the Lucas Neill story back in the January transfer window when the full-back was nipped from under Liverpool's noses and handed a nice wage of more than �50k a week himself. Newcastle are doing their own usual keeping-up-with-the-billionaire-owners impression by handing Joey Barton �70k a week and luring Mark Viduka up the road from Middlesbrough with the promise of close to that amount. Harry Redknapp has already been vocal about the damage this inflation is doing to negotiating a deal with anyone half decent in top division terms, and a couple of club directors have spoken about a shift in the market this summer.

It's one thing Liverpool committing �44million over four years for Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher or Man Utd putting �31million over five years into Cristiano Ronaldo's pockets . . . and of course these figures are frightening and restrictive in their own way . . . but now second tier clubs are shelling out massive sums of money in salaries for midrange players. In trying to hang on and bridge the gaps, there's a new system being created where it makes sense to up the going rate as long as you get your man. Hey, players aren't going to complain.

Undoubtedly, the most recent television deal has done its bit for this wild bout of spending. With a combined value of �2.7bn (once you've added the Sky and Setanta money onto the internet/mobile market and the overseas contracts) over three years, the top team in the Premiership next season will get �50million with the bottom team guaranteed �26.8million themselves just for being there and looking pretty. Just to give an idea of the leap, Chelsea received only �30million for winning the Premiership last season. The simple upshot of this is that clubs suddenly feel that the money is burning a hole in their pocket while agents have been rubbing their hands together and thinking of nice juicy percentages ever since the deal was announced back in the winter. Clubs getting more cash equals players getting more cash it seems.

It's worth a peek at the other big leagues in Europe, as both a further exhibit to how crazy it's gone and to fully understand the extent of the gap in money terms. In Italy, the Milans, Inters and Juves are well able to compete at the top end of the transfer and wage wranglings but just behind them, there's nothing like the depth there is in England. Take Fiorentina, who'd be a Champions League team both last year and next only for the penalties imposed by the authorities in the refereeing scandal of last summer. A couple of weeks ago, they had to let their top striker Luca Toni go to Bayern Munich because they couldn't (or wouldn't) go through their wage ceiling per player of around �1million a year and they've also missed out on the likes of Daniele De Rossi and Ludovic Giuly, top quality international players, because of their inability to get in amongst the big boys financially. That's while Newcastle throw in and around �3million a year each to Viduka and Barton. Go down the league further to a Udinese or a Parma and it's tighter again. Or there's Valencia, a genuine top notch Spanish side, who've got a star striker in David Villa on �55k a week, a star striker who'd get a double-yourmoney option should he so much as glance in Chelsea's direction. With this new television money, clubs like Newcastle, Aston Villa and Everton are finding themselves in the top tier of Europe on the money side of things.

There were eight English clubs in the Top 20 listing recently of Europe's richest. There'll be the bones of a billion pound difference between revenue in the Premiership and its closest competitor, Serie A, next season.

Television, as always, takes a share of the blame for the discrepancy. Television money is doled out rather differently in Italy and Spain . . . the clubs can negotiate individually with companies for whatever they believe they're worth which led to the wacky situation early in the season of Sevilla playing the football most pleasing to the eye in La Liga but because of disputes, nobody could see it. Anyway, while Barcelona and Real Madrid can look forward to getting in close to 80m a year each from television money, clubs like Deportivo La Coruna and Villareal are coming out with 20 times less. Much less than Watford and Sheffield United in the Premiership.

Ditto Serie A where the two Milan teams and Juve dominate television rights and the others fight among themselves for scraps.

And there's the new money floating around the game in England. An explosion of interest from the US means that three of the big four could have yank owners by this time next year, and it's unknown where Liverpool and Arsenal might yet drive the market at the top end. But where Roman Abramovich and Chelsea upped the asking price for the top drawer guys a few years ago, now it's the players just below that level who are being touted around with price tags and demands above their worth. Eggert Magnusson seems hell bent on dragging West Ham into the upper reaches of the Premiership by buying up the type of player he can realistically tempt there. Man City are in the process of a takeover and could go the same way. That clutch of clubs from 5th to 16th in the Premiership who fancy themselves as contenders to break into the big four will most likely try and keep up by whatever means necessary. As a knock-on effect, of course, expect any extra bulging of the paypackets of the middle earners to drive up the top earners at clubs as well.

There's a chance that this shift could lead to a newbie breaking into the top four in England in the next few years. It's almost certain to drive a wedge between the Premiership and the Championship and make it harder and harder to break into the elite division. From an individual point of view, it's a step towards the earnings of the US sports. The average NBA salary is $5million a year (about �2.5million). Tim Duncan, who just led the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA title, is on $17million a year, that's about �9million, and Kobe Bryant is on close enough to that figure too. It's creeping towards those numbers in the Premiership.

And there's the chance some of it could end in tears. There's the Leeds precedent which nobody wants to follow, hanging around like a warning to uncontrolled, pay-anymoney-for-everything ambition. Only this week, the administrators at Elland Road agreed to settle unpaid wages and bonuses to players and former players . . . hundreds of thousands of pounds each to Gary Kelly, Danny Mills, Richard Cresswell and others.

Ken Bates revealed only a few months back that Gary Kelly had been getting wages of �46k a week over the last five years, which comes out at over �12million in total. A notso-gentle reminder how it can all snowball out of control.