ALAN Green – the Radio Five Live football commentator – innocently tossed the grenade of empty seats into his coverage of Manchester City’s crucial Champions League match at home to Bayern Munich on Tuesday night.

He didn’t make any particular comment on the rows of sky blue plastic visible from the gantry, he just put it out there.

By all accounts he was a bit previous, with many City fans arriving late after being stuck in traffic, but the spikey Northern Irish wordsmith knew what he was doing.

Green might just as well have said: “Jeesh, call yourself a big club and you can’t even fill your ground for a do-or-die European game.

“You wouldn’t find any empty seats at the noisy neighbours – now that’s what I call a proper club.”

Fans of clubs that command a following who dip into their pockets like lemmings week after week to follow their team wear their full-to-capacity stadia like a badge of honour.

While neutrals look down on those that fail to max out their allocation with a shake of the head and a disapproving tut.

It is the football-supporting equivalent of comparing your biceps.

Fans don’t like to lose face and will come out fighting when observers cast aspersions on their perceived lack of loyalty.

I remember as a youngster, beaming with pride on the terraces when my team had a bigger than average attendance only for the away crowd to launch into a barbed comeback along the lines of: “Where were you when you were (ahem) rubbish.”

But as I have grown older and crossed over from fan to journalist, I have become a little more cynical.

While I would love to see my team take on the German giants, I can’t quite get my head round how committed football fans of the Premier League elite can afford to continually fork out for season tickets, cup tickets, European tickets and away trips to every corner of the country and the continent.

I can’t even begin to calculate how much that would cost, or how to handle the difficult conversation with Mrs Nelson as I explain to her that we are going to have to cancel Christmas and knock the family holiday on the head.

Surely, they are the sort of sacrifices the “home and awayers” have to make to fund their obsession.

After seeing the number of City fans who followed their team in huge numbers when they briefly dipped down to the third tier, I really don’t think people like Green have the right to question their commitment.

I would rather point the finger of blame at the Premier League and Champions League money men who charge astronomical prices – they are the ones who should have been squirming on Tuesday night.