STING once plaintively sang ‘If you love someone – set them free’.

Well it would appear there is not too much love around at the moment as football clubs seem to be working hard at biting back at the legacy of Jean-Marc Bosman.

Back in 1990, Belgian Bosman did many of his fellow colleagues a huge favour by standing his ground when free of his contract and demanding the right to work.

Sadly the upshot of his efforts over the years has been the steady growth in players deciding that they (or primarily their agents) get to call the shots over where they want to work and how much for.

Strangely the club who have decided that they, irrespective of whether they love the player involved or not, are going to hold out for their brass back is moneybags Manchester City.

The richest council tenants on the planet have hit back at Carlos Tevez’s plea to leave Eastlands by informing the player he has a contract to see out and he will not dictate to them what happens. It is not as if City need the money, but if Tevez is to go then they want £50m for him.

The problem is that potential buyers are few and far between given the Argentine international’s likely wage demands.

Reputedly on £250,000 a week – a figure that most of us can expect to see a tenth of in a year if we are lucky – Tevez is seemingly a bit on the steep side for even the likes of AC Milan, Internazionale or Real Madrid.

And Tevez has not helped himself by claiming his reason for wanting to leave Manchester is that he wants to be nearer his daughters.

They live in Buenos Aires and in reality the flights from Madrid and Milan are probably not going to be that much shorter than catching an inter-continental from what was once known as Ringway.

So if Tevez is being true to his word then by rights he should return to Boca Juniors – let’s face it River Plate wouldn’t have him – and in return they should sign their entire club over to City as a South American academy to start a new conveyor belt of talent to run alongside the one at Platt Lane.

Given the money he is reportedly bringing in then you would have thought that with a few weeks taking it easy on the grocery bills at Tescos might just see Tevez with enough in the bank to buy his own contract out – let’s face it over his time at City and United he has probably earned enough to have rebuilt the entire Hulme estate.

But for all the badge kissing, it is fairly obvious that Tevez – like many footballers at other clubs – has decided he wants to do something else with his career and whatever the incentives, or dis-incentives, he is unlikely to stay.

So rather than have someone hanging around the place like a gloomy teenager City may well find in the end they have to change their stance – after all having someone sitting in the stands on that kind of money, even if it is a principled stand, is pretty much a pointless act of showing who is boss.

SOMETIMES it is best to just button it and not offer an excuse.

David Haye has probably spent most of the last week thinking that he should have walked away from Hamburg with a dignified silence trailing in his wake.

Instead what he offered after his points defeat against Wladimir Klitschko was that a broken toe – not the ability of his rival – was at the root of his downfall.

Having broken toes on a couple of occasions – an injury that seemed to be fairly prevalent among hockey players when I was playing the game regularly a couple of decades ago – as far as I remember what you did was accept the crutches from the nice people at the hospital and sit in front of the telly for a week with a light cast on your foot.

What I don’t recall is thinking it would be a great idea to stand in close proximity to a guy who is six foot six inches tall with a frame to match.

My major fear would have been that he might stand on my foot, but Haye went in there knowing that he was also going to get punched into the bargain.

Haye is obviously a brave man but I can’t help but think he must have spent the whole fight running the risk of mimicking Deputy Dawg and yelping “Oooh!! My toe-bone!”

AS FAR as unexpected celebrations go new Wimbledon men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic has cornered the market.

One can only assume that he was ruminating about his centre court victory over Rafa Nadal as he impersonated a ruminant by deciding to eat the grass.

Not entirely the most hygienic way to hail a victory, or even the most spectacular, but the Serbian obviously has certainly got a taste for success in SW19.

But it has to be said that he was a deserving winner of the trophy with a display of controlled aggression throughout a tournament that again saw British hopeful Andy Murray come up short on expectations.

But while other pundits chew the cud over what the Scot does right or wrong, I have to say that I don’t think fate is on Murray’s side.

I have a strong feeling that a circle will be completed when the next British player wins the championship.

Back in the mid-1930s Fred Perry was the king and he was from Stockport.

Liam Broady came within a whisker of winning this year’s junior title and he is from Stockport.

It has just got to happen!