Sport is a fickle mistress.

With each passing season, professional sport edges closer towards becoming a corporate business which can at times seem to push the initial love of the game to the edges of importance.

Traditional elements of the game become marginalized, leaving fans nostalgic for ‘the old days'.

One of the biggest departures from of a by-gone era that fans lament is the seeming disappearance of player loyalty.

With unprecedented and unseemly amounts of money on offer for players, the trend has emerged that players will move clubs for greener pastures. This leads many fans to believe that players leave their clubs just to ‘chase the money' which often leads to widespread fan backlash.

See: LeBron James, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Ablett.

Loyalty is usually defined as teams owing something to players and players returning that in kind.

But lets be clear on this, professional sports is a business, and loyalty is more than a two-way street.

How can players be expected to remain loyal to a club, when clubs often do not return the sentiment?

Take ex-Washington Redskins lineman Phillip Daniels.

Daniels signed with the Redskins in 2004, and has since cemented his status as a fan favourite in Washington. Daniels has a reputation for being a great teammate, hard worker and selfless player.

On Friday morning, Daniels was axed from the Redskins line-up for the 2011-12 NFL season.

Daniels began the morning, excited and passionate about resuming his career once the NFL lockout had ended. On his Twitter account, the 137-kilogram beast stated as much.

An hour later, Daniels was cut from the squad, unceremoniously and emphatically.

To Daniels credit, he has remained a class act in the wake of his upheaval.

"Thank you to the Redskins organization for 7 great years. It's tough to say goodbye when you have bled burgundy & gold for so many years. I have no regrets because I left everything on the field. To Redskin Nation who have supported me all this time I got nothing but love for you...good luck to all the guys that I loved going to battle with."

If any player deserved loyalty from a club, it was Phillip Daniels. But the Redskins did not show any towards the 38-year old.

Nor do they have to.

And that's where the entire situation becomes murky.

With it incredibly hard to ignore the fact that sporting clubs and players are becoming increasingly corporate, only one loyalty remains.

The truest loyalty is owed by a team to the fans to field the best possible team, no matter what players are traded - or released - or whose feelings are hurt.

That's why with increasing prominence, fans don't follow players as much as they did in eras gone by, fans only follow their team.

Although Jerry Seinfeld famously stated that following a team was essentially like following a piece of clothing, but that fabric is worth so much more.

Whether it's Collingwood's black and white stripes, Real Madrid's famous all-white strip, the purple and gold of the Los Angeles Lakers or any other club colours, that matters more than any one player that pulls on the jersey.

Players will come and go - with a select group lucky enough to become engrained in club culture - but ultimately the team is paramount in the eyes of fans.

It's time for fans to get beyond the feeling that players owe their club anything.

Teams select and utilize players in order to try and turn in the best performances they can on the field.

As seen with Phillip Daniels, if the time comes when the team needs to cut ties with a player for the good of the squad, barely an eyelid is battered.

Players are simply employees of their club, if the chance arises for them to switch employers for a better package, they should jump at it.

Because their employers will always be looking for ways to upgrade their employees.