GARETH Southgate has warned that English football is on the brink of an “Italianstyle collapse” unless Premier League clubs follow Middlesbrough’s lead and put their financial house in order.

With the effects of the global financial slowdown beginning to feed into football, a number of top-flight clubs will be looking to cut costs when the transfer window reopens next month rather than spend freely on new signings.

Football Association chairman Lord Triesman recently claimed that the 20 Premier League clubs were saddled with a cumulative debt of £3bn, a situation that is causing concern in top-flight boardrooms as well as the upper echelons of both UEFA and FIFA.

A decade ago, Italian football was at the forefront of the world game, with clubs running up similarly unsustainable debt levels to attract the cream of the world’s talent.

For five or six years, Serie A’s leading sides rode the crest of a wave, but when television and sponsorship deals were trimmed back in the face of an Italian recession, the country’s footballing bubble burst spectacularly.

It is still to recover, and while there are other factors preventing Italian football from reinventing itself – hooliganism remains rife and the fall-out from the recent match-fixing scandal continues to have an effect – Southgate can see parallels between previous Italian over-expenditure and the current profligacy in the English game.

“I could see a Serie A collapse here,” said the Boro boss. “I think there’s a danger that there’s a complacency about the game, that it’ll keep on growing, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

“It will be an interesting few years for English football, because the Italian league has been through all of this and had massive problems as a result.

“It was the place to play and all the money was in their league, but it went as quickly as it arrived.

“At the moment, there are quite a few clubs that are completely dependent on billionaire owners and that money can disappear very quickly.

“In the past, a club spent what came through the turnstiles.

Then, the income from satellite TV meant there was money beyond the direct contribution of fans, and that inflated things a bit.

“Now, the different ownership model has put a completely different spin on things. We’re quite honest about our financial situation, but I think there are a lot of clubs, potentially in the process of being sold, that are going to have to move players on and reduce their wage bill quickly. Times have changed, and they’re having to change with it.”

Southgate’s final comment is understood to refer to Portsmouth, who have already committed to sell Lassana Diarra during the forthcoming transfer window now that owner Alexander Gaydamak has put the club up for sale.

Middlesbrough have accepted they will have to sell to buy next month, even though Southgate has made considerable cuts to the wage bill since replacing Steve Mc- Claren two seasons ago.

Boro’s wage bill has been reduced by around a third, and Southgate freely admits the club could not afford to continue with their previous financial model, an acceptance he feels will become increasingly common with regard to the club’s Premier League rivals.

“People will say you can’t afford to drop out of the league, but the way we were going, I’m not sure we could have afforded to stay in it,”

said Southgate. “So we had to take a different view on things.

“The long-term stability and survival of the club has to be the most important thing.

Myself and the chairman have to make sure that, when we pass on the reins at this football club, it’s in a healthy position.”

■ Captain Emanuel Pogatetz, Argentinian midfielder Julio Arca and Egyptian striker Mido will be signing Middlesbrough merchandise at the town’s club-centre store between 5.30pm-6.30pm this evening. Ex-referee Jeff Winter will also be joined by editors of the book “Teesside Urban Legends” between 6-8pm.