A COLLECTIVE sigh could be heard echoing around the Pennine hills earlier this week.

Barry Kilby's admission that Clarets boss Stan Ternent must perform his summer rebuilding programme without any transfer funds was a steely dagger through the heart of many die-hard fans.

The parlous state of affairs outside the 'fat cat' Premiership elite is hardly news to anyone with even one, half-closed eye on the bigger picture.

Yet many supporters would doubtless have clung to the belief that Stan would have some bargaining power with which to skim the cream of the Nationwide crop.

Clearing 13 players off the wage bill would also appear to give scope for manoeuvre in a saturated market place - with a reputed 800 players scrambling for work this summer.

But as canny Stan himself admitted earlier this week when I brought up the thorny issue of transfer fees in general : "What transfer fees?"

No, football is thankfully getting its house back in order after more than a decade of player power - and it's for that reason, and that reason alone, that we should all be breathing a collective sigh.

Short-term pain there may well be, but spiralling fees were draining the lifeblood from town teams like Burnley, who are already punching above their weight thanks to a pretty sensible wage structure and a collection of astute signings during Stan's five-year reign.

Not only that, but the game was creating a monster in terms of the haves-and-have-nots - a dangerous step towards the already mooted implementation of a two-tier Premiership system that would undoubtedly kill off the dreams of minnows up and down the country.

Horrific tales are already beginning to emerge of Premiership teams' spending in excess of 80 per cent of their entire annual income on wages alone.

Leeds' have just reported the laughable breakdown of £78m-worth of debt, while Sunderland have dismissed 83 staff in the wake of their relegation - another damning indictment of the spend-and-be-damned policy.

So thank heavens for chairmen like Kilby, who recently gave his backing to a radical shift in policy being adopted by third division clubs this summer.

The protocol, agreed at a meeting of all Nationwide League chairmen, will see clubs like Rochdale instantly slash the players' wage bill to no more than 60 per cent of total income.

Football League head of communications, John Nagle, explained: "Something had to be done and we are delighted that all Nationwide clubs are supporting this policy.

"We see this as the just a pilot scheme in the beginning, but although the first and second division clubs are just looking on at the moment, there is nothing to stop them adopting a similar scheme."

Right now, it's a buyer's market - and following the Turf Moor cull, Stan certainly has his shopping head on!