BRIAN READE: Don't try this at home, children.. it's yet another Blue Peter bodge.

Byline: BRIAN READE

SO could you have resisted the indecent proposal put Steven Gerrard's way in Portugal?

Could you have rejected the flattery and the riches lavished on you by veteran snake-oil salesmen while Roman Abramovich's yacht swaggered in the Lisbon harbour, a sleek, seductive, open-legged hooker saying "take me Big Boy, I'm yours."

If you were 24, from a working-class housing estate, and just become a father, could you have turned your back on the promise of having every personal and professional need fulfilled while still in your 20s (pounds 30million, plus bonuses, over five years, pitched at you with the prospect of winning every medal on offer alongside the world's biggest stars)?

Even those who thought Gerrard was being disloyal for contemplating a move to Chelsea must admit the temptation out there in Portugal would have ripped apart most men. Especially when your agent is being seduced on the big yacht and the best restaurants, and your missus is being chaperoned around the swishest boutiques with Frank Lampard's and John Terry's partners.

Which is why it's impossible to underplay the thanks every football fan owes Steven Gerrard (or should that be the friends and family who followed Jamie Carragher's lead and slapped him back down to earth the second his feet landed on Mersey soil?).

And if the FA have anything about them, they will act on behalf of those fans by ensuring the next time England qualify for a tournament their slim chances of winning it are not made anorexic by letting leeches and shysters turn the heads of young men who should be totally focused on playing for their country.

A good start would be to ban any contact with agents, chief executives and managers once they reach the host country. A follow-up would be to slap an electronic tag on the sly rogue who is single-handedly attempting to extinguish any decency left in English football, Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon.

His behaviour in Portugal, totally in keeping with his duplicitous track record, was nothing short of a disgrace. The tapping-up of Gerrard, which preceded Euro 2004 but which intensified in Portugal with leaks about a done deal and a TV interview shown repeatedly in the players' hotel where Kenyon spoke of seeing the Liverpool captain playing alongside Lampard, was bordering on the criminal.

Gerrard was a shadow of the player he'd been all season because the guilt he was feeling about what he was about to do to his home-town club drained him. And Kenyon has to take the blame for those sleepless nights. The more this insidious Machiavellian figure fails to justify the pounds 1m-a-year Abramovich gives him to bribe top talent to Chelsea, the more desperate he gets.

This was the man who, within a second of meeting Abramovich's cheque-book, decided he was no longer a lifetime Manchester United fanatic, but a big Chelsea fan.

Kenyon it was who, a month into his job, briefed reporters that Claudio Ranieri would be sacked in the summer, while Chelsea were still in the hunt for three trophies.

Kenyon it was who promised to deliver Sven Goran Eriksson, forcing more pressure on Eriksson and Ranieri, and on the FA to stump up a fortune to match Chelsea wages.

The only consolation is, he's proving so unsuccessful at his job that Abramovich may soon question how much his right-hand man knows about a game he's invested pounds 300m in.

If he needs any help answering that he should study Kenyon's dubious record at Old Trafford where he allowed the Sir Alex Ferguson-JP McManus row to grow into an ugly boil. Where David Beckham was allowed to leave but his replacement, Ronaldinho, never arrived, because Kenyon balked at the pounds 19m fee. "Kenyon didn't get the job done," raged Fergie, when Ronaldinho set Barcelona alight.

Where he wrote a pounds 30m cheque for Rio Ferdinand, not realising Leeds were so skint months later they would sell Jonathan Woodgate for pounds 21m less.

Where he paid pounds 28m for Juan Sebastian Veron, without realising a lame hamster was more suited to the Premiership.

That track record might explain why he failed to get Chelsea the manager he promised (or indeed one of the top five on his short-list before a Russian referee handed Jose Mourinho a draw at Old Trafford and we worked out who he was).

It may also explain why he's having about as much success signing the world's best stars as David Moyes is. Thierry Henry, Andrei Shevchenko, Fernando Morientes, Beckham and now Gerrard have all knocked him back. From shopping at Harrods, he's down to British Home Stores, and his only policy is to pay vastly over the odds for anyone whose soul is up for grabs.

But then where is the evidence he knows or cares anything about football? This was the man who said half of our clubs should be allowed to go to the wall. That's economics you see. The real world. A world where greed is good and contracts, loyalty, decency and the interests of the fans and our national sport are irrelevant. It's dog eat dog.

Well he's been bitten on the backside by a Huyton terrier. Let's hope the Russian wolfhound rediscovers his appetite for success and finishes off the job.GUN SHOT: Kenyon would love to sign Gunner Henry

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TARGET: Eriksson looked like taking charge of Chelsea