Bravo the youngsters of Gold Coast United. Enthusiasm, enterprise, courage – it was all on display as they held the league leaders to an entertaining 3-3 draw. What might have been a bloodbath, given the events of recent weeks, turned out to be the perfect tonic for some decidedly grubby off-field goings-on.

The match against Central Coast Mariners, in front of a near-empty Skilled Park, demonstrated all that is great and rotten about Season 7 of the A-League. There it was - the scintillating spectacle of up-and-coming football talent while high in the cavernous stands a jaded billionaire plotted his next lawsuit.

Yep, another season of the beautiful game marred by the ugly manoeuvrings of people with more axes to grind than the Sydney Royal woodchopping comp. And right when the run to the finals should be grabbing all the headlines. Not for the first time, Gold Coast’s blowhard owner Clive Palmer was the catalyst for some bitter recriminations.

It’s not so much that the mining magnate thinks the game is hopeless, prefers league and regards his club as insignificant (yes I know, he was taken out of context).

It’s not that in a 10-club competition, the man who supposedly has a unique insight into what ails us can’t even get the name of Melbourne Heart right.

It’s not even that his PR masterstroke, to throw a 17-year-old debutant into the captaincy, had all the hallmarks of a boozy late-night thought bubble burped out over some beers and a barrel of pork crackling.

And really, let’s not even get into the whole ‘rebel league’ farce.

What’s really disturbing is the barely contained glee by some within the football fraternity that here was a person who finally had the chops to bring the administration down a peg or two. Fingers in dykes, chickens home to roost – no cliché was left unturned in the scramble to justify the mogul’s denigration of the game. If there’s a stench at the heart of the league, chances are it’s the load of dirty laundry we’ve left flapping in the breeze.

Personally I don’t see the value in taking direction from Clive Palmer unless it concerns identifying a potential iron ore deposit. I’d rather turn my attention to the players, the fans, the coach he stood down, Miron Bleiberg, who even after all his years in football, still manages to appear wide-eyed and enthralled every time he talks about the game.

Palmer’s rant on the World Game, in particular, had all the precision of that YouTube monkey with the AK-47. He took pot-shots at everything. When you spray bullets you’re bound to get some on target, right? That’s the beauty of it. A rambling, at times incoherent, outburst full of dark doings and conspiracies at HQ. I was half expecting to see the cross back to studio showing a panel wearing foil hats.

Of course, you don’t get to be where Palmer is without knowing how to push people’s buttons and the Gold Coast owner hit just about every hot spot in football. Every grievance – real or otherwise – was given an airing in his scattergun approach. Every scab picked and exposed. It was the perfect case of deflection. And it worked a treat because right now his beleaguered club is in in danger of becoming little more than a margin scribble in the whole debate.

Fired up about the absence of free to air coverage? Think FFA fat cats are paid too much? Upset your boy didn’t make the Olyroos? And all through the tirade he was wearing the World Cup bid scarf – no doubt to highlight another FFA cock-up. The Come Play touch was apt really because boy did he play us. He plucked us like a tinny banjo in some back-country Deliverance romp. It was so easy.

Sadly, some football people are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone who brings a battering ram. Even a man who openly boasts about his successful court actions? Who uses the law to bully others into compliance? Who seems prepared to litigate the game to a standstill, if need be? Yep. A day of reckoning may be approaching for the FFA but it shouldn’t be Palmer who dishes it up.

During this week’s game, when his face flashed onto the big screen, it elicited an impressive wave of booing from the last rump of support – some 1100 or so fans – who had filed through the gates at Skilled Park. Little wonder. Too often he treated supporters like disrespectful subjects. Palmer to help save football? That’s a bit rich even from one of Australia’s richest people. Thank God Perth Glory owner Tony Sage stepped up to restore the good name of mining magnates everywhere and to show that necessary change doesn’t mean razing everything to the ground.

There’s no place for Clive Palmer in football. He doesn’t like the game – he doesn’t understand it. He feels it in his pocket but not in his heart. He has big ideas on how to overhaul the FFA but apparently no clue, or perhaps interest, in re-engaging the football community in his own backyard. You bet the FFA should hang its head - shame on HQ for ever thinking this bloke, given his track record, was a right fit for our football family.

Not only has his recent tirade brought the entire league into disrepute and tarnished the brand, it has undermined the rest of the clubs – a fact other owners have been quick to point out. Clive Palmer has nothing to offer but his billions, and his billions apparently hold no attraction for football fans on the Gold Coast.

No one wants to Come Play with you Clive because, when you get right down to it, all you have to offer is dissent and discord. And quite frankly when it comes to tearing the game to shreds we can do an admirable job without you.