Football's finances were under the microscope again this week and the results point to a bleak future for some of Britain's top clubs.

Firstly, British footballs rich list was unveiled showing that Roman Abramovich is no longer the country's richest football club owner. Instead he is now third behind Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Man City and Lakshmi Mittal of QPR. The Russian oligarch is estimated to have lost billions of pounds during the recent economic crisis and as a result he has already started making cutbacks at Chelsea (even the players' allocation of complimentary match tickets was slashed by half in order to cut costs). Before then the Londoners seemed untouchable in the money stakes, whoever they wanted they got, and a period of sustained success seemed inevitable. But the world of finance can be as hard to predict as the football results so the two merged together was always going to be a a volatile mix.

I believe Abramovich's toppling off the summit of footballs rich list may become as symbolic and significant as the day he first swept into Stamford Bridge to bail out the then heavily indebted London club.

This is because his arrival in 2003 opened the door to a number of rich foreign investors eager to spend their billions (not millions) and make a quick buck out of the world's most popular League. For the clubs it must have been like all their Christmases had come at once. With their creditors at their door and the fear of what's now become known as  'doing a Leeds'  becoming a grim reality, these rich sugar daddies offered them a get out of jail free card, wiping out their debts and giving their eager managers seemingly endless amounts of cash for the manager to spend. True Championship Manager type stuff. For the owners it was a way of beating the football odds and buying instant success.

I've no doubt that when John Terry lifted the Premier League title Chelsea fans didn't really care where all their clubs money came from, but in the cold light of day, I'm sure even the most ardent of Blues fan would admit there was something slightly wrong about their team becoming a rich mans play thing. Don't forget Chelsea are currently indebted to the tune of £730million, around £578million of which is in the form of an 'interest free loan' from Abramovich. Should Abramovich choose to call in the loan, the club would have just 18 months to find the money.

Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Portsmouth, West Ham and Man City (twice) all fell into the hands of foreign owners following Abramovich's lead. Like a rich parent paying their child's credit card bill after they maxed it out at University, some football clubs were not paying the price for their earlier irresponsible spending.

But with the sport now firmly plugged into the cycle of the world economy the economic crisis that snowballed throughout 2008 changed the football landscape and could have some catastrophic consequences. Football is no longer a safe investment for owners, and even for those who want to invest, the credit just isn't there anymore. For Abramovich it could be a case of first in first out if the rumours that he is wiling to sell up are true.

Evidence of belt tightening has been shown by the quiet start to the transfer window - cash rich Man City aside. City will have noticed that they've got precious little competition from other clubs when bidding for players. The main problem for them is dealing with the selling clubs who, eager to get some Arab money of their own, double the asking price for any player City take a fancy to - and who can blame them?

Keith Harris, the merchant banker who has brokered the foreign takeovers of a number of Premier League clubs, said the current economic climate was the "toughest anybody has endured in a lifetime," and that means we are "unlikely to see much activity on the takeover scene."

This means that the football club's last line of defence against insolvency has been pulled away from under their feet. Harris has been instructed to find buyers (so far without success) for Newcastle and Everton, two clubs with a mountain of debt and desperate to find the money to break into the top four. Portsmouth and West Ham have being selling players to appease their creditors and have been put up for sale by their credit crunched foreign owners. Meanwhile David Gillett and Tom Hicks of Liverpool had to ask more time from the bank to repay a £350 million loan.

While the clubs are suffering financially the players appear to be as rich as ever, giving us a clue as to where a lot of the money has gone. Alongside the football owners rich list the countries richest players were also revealed this week. It would come to no surprise that David Beckham was number one with an estimated fortune of £125 million, over three times that of second placed Michael Owen. Now I realise much of the top players fortunes come from marketing and advertising deals but they are still paid obscenely high wages by the clubs. These enormous wage levels were never going to be sustainable and much of the money poured into the game over the last decade has, instead of being re-invested, flowed out in a sea of fast cars, mansions and expensive clothes.

Also revealed this week was the credit rating of each Premier League club, complied by credit information firm Equifax. The results showed that half of the 20 clubs are technically insolvent and would struggle to repay their debts if all their creditors requested their money back at once.

Now that scenario is unlikely, but with no billionaire knight in shining armour to act as a last line of defence football clubs are teetering on the edge of a financial precipice. In the long term the end of irresponsible spending can only be of benefit, but how many football clubs will go the way of Woolworths before we get there?

How will the credit crunch affect the title race? Bet on the Premier League here at Betfair.