IF you find the private jet industry offensive for blackening the skies while moving a minimal number of people from A to B, then Monday was a dark one.

It was the final hours of the football transfer deadline where haggling over a person’s worth ends with various players criss-crossing Europe and beyond at speed to sign for one team or another before midnight.

There is a new trend online too which fans have been suckered into in recent years, pushing social media pictures of imminent new arrivals sailing through the clouds from the inside of an exclusive six-seater with complimentary brie and grapes.

If the players are smiling in the snaps, then they are on their way to us.

Only sex and crime get more eyeballs on the internet than football gossip and exclusive “on the jet” photos are so valuable in the click metrics that journalists watermark them for protection.

Of course, big money business people conduct their affairs like this in all walks of life and not just football, but there is something exceptionally gratuitous about the constant stream of pictures of average footballers taking unfriendly flights.

Some say we shouldn’t fly at all if we want to halt climate change. That would be very limiting, but there must be something more efficient than a couple of guys jetting up the skies.

The use of such flights – which is easy to characterise as the rich not giving a fudge about how the emissions will affect people many salaries poorer – was what made the battle to stop City Airport’s expansion so steeped in resentment.

Poorer parts of London were paying for the wealthy to avoid a communal baggage carousel.

The row over Heathrow Airport’s expansion has had some airplay in recent weeks, but editors know there is an emotional tug on that one for people who feel bad about taking even one flight for their summer holiday.

Angela Rayner’s approval of more planes from City Airport, by contrast, almost slipped under the radar.

The usual people will suffer – but at least your team has a new signing.