It is difficult, even 24 hours on, to pick out the part of Project Big Picture and its fall-out which is the most genuinely hilarious – if you like your humour dark and bitter, that is.

A personal favourite is the idea, nudged into certain reports, that the owners of arguably the biggest of the “big six”, the Glazers, are motivated by a humble desire to protect English football’s sacred pyramid.

The Glazers! They of the hedge-fund loans, eye-watering debts and monster dividends at the commercial enterprise formerly known as Manchester United Football Club.

Yes, I’m sure they are driven above all by a deep desire to see Carlisle United and their ilk get in closer touch with the elite. Their entry into the English game was just one long hustle in the name of even competition and fairer distribution. Silly us for thinking otherwise.

Another take which brought about howls of laughter strong enough to tip chairs was the Premier League’s own. It is always quite the spectacle watching big organisations race to the lectern without the slightest self-awareness, and their statement in response to Sunday’s proposals did not let us down.

The plan drawn up by Liverpool and Man Utd and with the support of EFL leadership, they said, “could have a damaging impact on the whole game”, and that better solutions would be gained if “we all work together”.

The Premier League. Warning about damaging the whole game. The actual Premier League.

Satirists are going to be the next profession on a Government poster at this rate. Sorry, folks, your job is no longer viable. Rethink, reskill, reboot.

We must pick ourselves from the floor, though, and look at all this, now that Project Big Secret is out in the open, seemingly floated in The Telegraph before some of the actual clubs affected were given the decency of official notification.

The starting point should always be to look past the sweeteners, however tasty they may be, and ask the vital questions, which are always about power: how much of it do they want, and what do they want to do with it?

Answer one, plenty; answer two, well, we can probably take an educated guess.

This is, make no mistake, a bid to consolidate the status of those driving the plan and those who will most obviously benefit. There are usually deals to be struck with the devil in order to advance modern football anywhere these days but if the English game wishes above all to further empower the Glazers, Fenway Sports Group, Stan Kroenke and such like, it must go straight ahead and vote this through.

If it wants to apply some checks before it’s too late, it needs to give these proposals a firm shake until all the bad fruit falls from the branches. Otherwise a big drawbridge will be pulled up forever.

The guiding suspicion simply must be: what will the “big six” do with their extra might, once it’s formally signed over? What will their enshrined voting power allow them to foster, with no longer the same powers of objection allowed in the lower ranks?

A Euro-breakaway? B Teams in the EFL? Hoarding of individual television rights? An end to top-flight relegation, even? If they want it after this – and they’re hardly going to say so at this stage – how will the rest be able to build barricades? This is the worst of the plan, an opportunistic power-grab which should be seen this way, whatever merits people may spy in the detail.

Some of those do exist. The suggested redistribution of television money, with 25 per cent going to the EFL, is broadly what the game and the lower-leagues require. The organisation now concerned about “damaging the game” opened the current, gaping gap many years ago. Any reasonable move to close it ought to be considered.

Increased money for the Football Association and grassroots causes, too, is an obvious upside. It is also unavoidably the case that, at a time of chronic need, at least we have an idea to inspect, and the various other competing interests near the game’s top table have not yet come up with one.

So thrash it out, then, if that is remotely possible. The only problem is time, which those at Carlisle’s end don’t particularly have.

If this thing doesn’t fly, if it’s gunned down – as well it might be – what next? It won’t stop the clock ticking down to what United’s EFL man John Nixon has described as “Armageddon”, scheduled to start at some stage next month.

Civil war, which already appears in full swing, is not what clubs ransacked by Covid-19 need. Some of those at the peak may be able to afford a period of politicking and arm-wrestling; League Two clubs deprived of fans for months cannot.

This needs to focus minds and it is hoped Rick Parry, the EFL chairman, has at least some eggs left for different baskets in the coming days.

One thing we do know from what he has hatched with Liverpool and Manchester United is that – wouldn’t you know it! – the £250m is there after all.

The sum required by the EFL to save their clubs from being obliterated by coronavirus: it’s part of Parry’s package, there in black and white. If it’s whipped away now, we will certainly know how conditional the elite’s support truly is.

We will know the true price of saving a structure which, we are invited to believe, keeps the Glazers awake at night.

One has to try not to let cynicism smother every aspect of this. But it’s hard. Here’s the thing: if those with the most muscle in English football really cared about its foundations, there have been ample opportunities to show it long before now.

They could have lobbied against invading the EFL Trophy with their stockpiled Under-21s, for one thing. They could have turned down the other great power snatch known as the Elite Player Performance Plan.

They could have stopped taking, and taking, and taking.

They didn’t then and they won’t now, once this seemingly helpful set of ideas is set down in statute.

Each stakeholder in the game needs, in the coming days, to decide whether the immediate, urgent pros are worth the long-term cons. As ever, the pressure of the moment will undoubtedly make some sign up.

At the very least they must do so with noses held, ears pricked and eyes wide open.