Sometimes I look at sports news and just laugh to myself. It seems it is becoming less about the action on the pitch and more about trivial dramas which are better suited to an episode of Eastenders.

Take the recent “argument” between Anthony Martial and Manchester United, which is a total farce.

For those that missed it, United released their provisional squad numbers for the upcoming season at the tail-end of last week.

On it, fans noticed that Martial will no longer be wearing the number nine shirt. That “privilege” has been given to new signing Zlatan Ibrahamovic.

That is nothing new, player comes in and takes the number of an existing squad player. What caused the problem was that Martial was not told about the number change.

The Frenchman and his marketing team had just launched a brand centred around his club number, calling it AM9.

Instead of that being the end of it, Martial proceeded to unfollow the club on Twitter and changed his profile picture on Facebook to a picture of him with his new AM9 brand name on it.

He then updated his Facebook header photo to a black and white picture of him celebrating his winning goal in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley against Everton.

The image of Martial remained in colour, highlighting the back of his shirt and the number nine.

It led to a number of articles online and in newspapers about Martial falling out with the club, whether he was about to be sold and a huge discussion on social media about who was in the wrong.

Personally, I’d say the club should have informed the player what was going on. But at the same time, it is just a number.

I understand that players want to wear certain numbers, when I played growing up I hated wearing the number one jersey and preferred to wear 19, 23 or 42 (I was a bit of a prima donna), but I never let it get in the way of the bigger picture and that was playing football.

Now Martial may be brilliant this season and the number issue will be brushed under the carpet. But it has been handled terribly by both parties and is a sign of the current state of football.

In baseball, Chicago White Sox pitcher Chris Sale was sent home hours before a match on Saturday for cutting up the team’s jerseys. Yes, Sale, an adult, professional athlete, human being, was so pissed off at the thought of wearing the White Sox alternative uniform that he decided no-one should wear them and destroyed them.

Now ironically, Sale had a point. He felt that the team were placing more emphasis on making money and promoting the kit than winning matches and wanted the team to focus on what really mattered.

Plus, the tops had unusual collars and given the hot and humid weather, would have been playing in them pretty unbearable.

“When I saw that there was something in the way of that 100 per cent winning mentality, I had an issue,” Sale said in the interview with MLB.com. “I tried to bring it up and say: ‘Hey listen, these are my thoughts and concerns,’ and they got pushed away because of the business deal that was set in place. I’ll never understand why we need to do something on the business side on the field that might impede us winning a game.”

I agree with Sale, though he did go about it in the wrong way. Teams are putting money and profit ahead of winning.

Going back to United, and Premier League clubs in general, pre-season tours are more about promoting the team brand for money.

Pre-season in football is a personal gripe of mine and one that I bring up every summer. But nothing gets done.

In the space of 72 hours, United’s plane to China got lost due to bad weather and had to land in a different location. Upon arrival in Beijing, their Manchester City pre-game press conference — yes, a Manchester derby was being held in China — had to be moved out of the media room and to the side of the pitch because of how hot the room was.

Then, to top it off, the game against City was called off due to the pitch being deemed unplayable due to a week of heavy rain.

So as one fan put it so brilliantly on Twitter, United effectively travelled 10,000 miles to get humiliated 4-1 by Borussia Dortmund and train in the rain.

Teams have these tours abroad to work out in the sun or that’s what they tell us. But we all know they do it to pander to their sponsors and flog their latest kit.

If they wanted to train in hot weather, they may as well stay in the country. Or fly somewhere in Europe. Up until now, I thought it was a good thing that teams visited fans in Asia and Africa to give them a chance to see players live.

And I still do. Fans across the globe may not be able to afford travelling to England, staying in a hotel and then securing a ticket to a game. That costs a lot of money.

However, and this may sound really selfish and cynical, these countries have their own leagues which are probably cheaper to watch and better for the community. The Chinese Super League is growing, Major League Soccer is getting bigger and stars of the Premier League are now plying their trade in leagues across the world.

I would love to watch the Miami Dolphins play and I could wait for them to come to London and play in the NFL International Series. Or, I could travel to the United States and watch them play in the country that they play in every season.

Teams have an obligation to their local fans, which they often forget.

Instead of forcing players to go on these taxing trips and then complaining that they are tired in February, doesn’t it make more sense to keep them at home during the summer and work on fitness at the multi-million pound training complex that is built specifically for stuff like this?

Sport has had some positives over the last week, namely the WNBA dropping the ridiculous fines against the players and teams for protesting at the recent killings of black men.

As Carmelo Anthony rightly pointed out, the NBA and its stars were not fined a few years back for doing the exact same thing.

Like the NFL, the WNBA is happy for players to use T-shirts to support causes that the league feels are important. But should a player decide to support a cause close to them, that’s when it becomes a problem.

As I have mentioned before, there should be a designated section of the league organisation which deals with which charities or causes to support throughout the season.

If a team or player wants to add one to the list, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, they should be allowed to submit it to the league along with a reason.

If it gets declined, and some will, then maybe that can be taken to appeal.

Maybe the league would have declined the WNBA’s T-shirt protest and the players would have gone ahead with it anyway.

But in that situation, the league would have come out better than it has over the past fortnight.

Maybe once the summer is over and the silly season in sport, and news, is over too, stories such as players arguing over numbers will disappear.

However, it could be just the start as player power increases and teams struggle to deal with the phenomenon.